Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Who Wants To Be A Muggle? The Diminished Legitimacy Of Law As Magic, Mark Edwin Burge

Faculty Scholarship

In the Harry Potter world, the magical population lives among the non-magical Muggle population, but we Muggles are largely unaware of them. This secrecy is by elaborate design and is necessitated by centuries-old hostility to wizards by the non-magical majority. The reasons behind this hostility, when combined with the similarities between Harry Potter-stylemagic and American law, make Rowling’s novels into a cautionary tale for the legal profession that it not treat law as a magic unknowable to non-lawyers. Comprehensibility — as a self-contained, normative value in the enactment interpretation, and practice of law — is given short-shrift by the legal …

Before They Even Start: Hope And Incoming 1ls, Barbara Brunner

Faculty Scholarship

Newly-accepted law school 1Ls often express interest in how they should spend the summer before starting their fall courses in order to be best prepared for success in their first semester. This desire to have a "leg up" on law school success leads those of us teaching first-year courses to think more deeply about what constitutes a "good preparation" for the unique experiences that new law students will face, and what skills are really necessary to increase their possibilities of success, especially in the first semester.

Over the past few years, I have compiled a list of activities which I …

Arkansas, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

An update to the 2007 State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources.

The Durham Statement On Open Access One Year Later: Preservation And Access To Legal Scholarship, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship calls for US law schools to stop publishing their journals in print format and to rely instead on electronic publication with a commitment to keep the electronic versions available in “stable, open, digital formats.” The Statement asks for two things: 1) open access publication of law school-published journals; and 2) an end to print publication of law journals. This paper was written as background for a July 2010 American Association of Law Libraries conference program on the preservation implications of the call to end print publication.

Coke, Selden, Hale And The Oxford English Dictionary, Joel Fishman

Law Faculty Publications

Most readers will of course recognize the names of Edward Coke, John Selden and Matthew Hale as three of the most important judges/lawyers of the seventeenth-century England. Coke is widely known for his role as Chief Justice of King's Bench in the reign of James I and opposition leader in Parliament to Charles I as well as the author of Coke's Reports and the Institutes of the Lawes of England (4 vols. 1628-1644). John Selden was the major legal historian of his age and also a member of the 1628 parliament (and for whom the Selden Society is named after). …

The Power Of Priming In Legal Advocacy: Using The Science Of First Impressions To Persuade The Reader, Kathryn M. Stanchi

Scholarly Works

The contribution of this Article is the synthesis of legal advocacy and the psychological studies of priming. It shows advocates how priming can help them make better strategic decisions in their briefs and gives specific examples of different ways to use priming in persuasive writing. Part I defines the basic concept of priming and gives examples of different ways that priming works. Part II begins the application of the priming studies to law. The focus of Part II is on priming the reader's emotional response through theme and story. It also examines how emotions can impact decision making in unexpected …

The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching & Scholarship, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

Professor Beazley joins a panel of the elite of legal writing professors at Mercer University, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Legal Writing Institute in this transcript of the proceedings.

The Past, Presence, And Future Of Legal Writing Scholarship: Rhetoric, Voice, And Community, Linda L. Berger, Linda H. Edwards, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

This article welcomes a new generation of legal writing scholars. In the first generation, legal writing professors debated whether they should be engaged in legal scholarship at all. In the second generation, assuming that they should be engaged in scholarship, legal writing professors discerned and defined different genres of and topics for the scholarship in which some or all of us were or should be engaged. In this article, we map the contours of a third generation of legal writing scholarship - one that integrates the elements of our professional lives and allows us to engage more effectively with our …

A Writing Life, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

This essay was written on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI), celebrated at Mercer University School of Law, LWI’s current home. In a sense the essay is retrospective, for it is written to honor the scholars whose work has moved us toward a vision of legal writing scholarship and all it can offer. Many of those experienced and inspiring scholars have kindly offered their advice for inclusion in this essay. That advice is probably the most important content included here, and it is placed, appropriately, at the end of the text as the essay’s …

Symposium, The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching And Scholarship, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

This is the transcript of Mercer Law Review’s Symposium, The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of Teaching & Scholarship. In this Symposium Linda Edwards, among other panelists, discussed the work that goes into producing scholarship.

Symposium, The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching And Scholarship, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

This is the transcript of Mercer Law Review’s Symposium, The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of Teaching & Scholarship. In this Symposium Linda Edwards, among other panelists, discussed the work that goes into producing scholarship.

Symposium, The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching And Scholarship, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

This is the transcript of Mercer Law Review’s Symposium, The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of Teaching & Scholarship. In this Symposium Linda Edwards, among other panelists, discussed the work that goes into producing scholarship.

Studying And Teaching “Law As Rhetoric”: A Place To Stand, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

This article proposes that law students may find a better fit within the legal culture of argument if they are introduced to rhetorical alternatives to counter narrowly formalist and realist perspectives on how the law works and how judges decide cases. To support this proposal, the article describes and evaluates an upper-level elective course in Law & Rhetoric, which I have offered at two law schools since 2003.

The article makes a two-part argument: first, introducing law students to rhetorical alternatives allows them to envision their role as lawyers as constructive, effective, and imaginative while grounded in law, language, and …

Individuals And Community, Discipline Building And Disciplinary Values: The First Twenty-Five Years Of The Legal Writing Institute, Chris Rideout

Faculty Articles

In this article Professor Rideout is the speaker at the Luncheon Speech during the Symposium “The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of Teaching & Scholarship”. Professor Rideout examines what the faculty and community in legal writing has been doing in the last twenty-five years that renders legal writing a discipline. Professor Rideout explains that in their work in legal writing, along with creating a community, faculty are also creating a discipline—one that has its own practices and that has its own embedded epistemologies, ideologies, and values. The underlying values constitute the legal writing community as a discipline—of legal writing—one …

An Autobiography Of A Digital Idea: From Waging War Against Laptops To Engaging Students With Laptops, Diana R. Donahoe

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is an autobiographical account of my attempt to bridge the digital divide to meet students' changing needs. When I first began teaching at Georgetown University Law Center in 1993, I employed many traditional teaching techniques and used printed textbooks. However, laptops soon began peppering my classroom; at first there were only a few, and then suddenly almost every student was hiding behind a laptop. I noticed that my students were looking down at their screens, typing furiously, instead of watching me while I discussed my material written on the blackboard or projected overhead. When I realized that I was …

Narrative, Normativity, And Causation, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay examines the relationship between constitutional narratives, causation, and normativity in the context of Barry Friedman’s book, The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution. In his book, Friedman provides a grand narrative of American constitutional history that emphasizes the role of public opinion in the development of American constitutional law. That narrative involves both implicit and explicit claims about the causal forces that shape constitutional doctrine and about normative constitutional theory. The aim of this essay is to identify those claims, excavate their theoretical assumptions, …

The Weiner-Rogers Law Library: An Invaluable Legal Resource, Jeanne Price

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Genre Analysis Of Introductions In Tort Textbooks., Tai Chooi Li

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study examines the introductions in Tort textbooks to determine the structure and patternings used by writers of this genre. A model for the introduction is then proposed. Five introductions are selected and analysed using Bhatia's(1993) framework to identify the moves in Introductions. Through the stratification process of MOVES and STEPS, findings reveal that similar moves are found across the introductions that were analysed due to the common communicative purposes of the writers. The seven areas of importance in Tort introductions found are the introduction and aim of Tort, distinguishing Tort with other areas of law, the role of policy …

Penderafan Dokumen Wasiat Islam Di Amanah Raya Berhad : Analisis Menurut Perspektif Islam., Al Azifah Mohd Safie

Student Works (2010-2019)

A document is a source of statement which in nature is dominant and authoritative in order to explain certain facts. Hence filing a Wasiyyaħ is more effective as it acts as a record where it can store and keep long term information due to the fact that a death of a person is uncertain. Therefore, this dissertation will be focusing on the prosess of drafting the document of Muslim’s bequests or known as Wasiyyaħ implemented at Amanah Raya Berhad, a Trustee Corporation in Malaysia. The primary objective of this research is to analyse the standard of drafting Muslim’s Wasiyyaħ in …

The Universe Of Thinkable Thoughts Versus The Facts Of Empirical Research, Joseph A. Custer

Faculty Publications

Mr. Custer considers the use of "literary warrant" as it affects the usefulness of the West Digest System, and reports on the results of a survey he conducted with both legal practitioners and law faculty. He concludes that the West Digest System has some viability, but it will need to extend its literary warrant to remain a player in today's legal culture.

Change And Continuity (Rip Van Winkle's Reference Office), Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

How much has law librarianship changed over the past twenty years? Ms. Whisner imagines coming back to her library after being asleep for twenty years, and concludes that while our tools have changed, the basics of our jobs have remained remarkably stable.

Enact Locally, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Legal researchers often forget about municipal ordinances when looking for governing authority. Ms. Whisner discusses the wide range of topics that can be covered by local law, and encourages law librarians to think about it both when researching and when teaching the process of legal research

Learning From Reference Experience, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

While we all learn from experience, law librarians seeking to improve their reference skills can speed up the learning process by using some of the methods Ms. Whisner outlines.

The Rewards Of Tedium, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

While routine projects can be tedious, Ms. Whisner points out factors that make those tedious projects a little easier to bear, as well as some lessons to be learned from a specific project she undertook.

Time To Blossom: An Inquiry Into Bloom’S Taxonomy As A Hierarchy And Means For Teaching Legal Research Skills, Paul D. Callister

Faculty Works

Within law librarianship and legal education, there has been far too little scholarly engagement on the underlying pedagogy at the heart of legal research instruction. To correct this deficiency, law librarianship needs to open a dialogue and should consider adapting Bloom’s Taxonomy as a common schema for a collaborative effort.

This paper was initially presented at the "Conference on Legal Information: Scholarship and Teaching," held at the University of Colorado Law School on June 21-22, 2009, as part of its Boulder Summer Conference Series. It follows the author's own recently published challenge to law librarianship and legal research instructors to …

Leaps And Bounds, Nestor M. Davidson

Michigan Law Review

Imagine how stunted our understanding of the federal government would be without any detailed scholarly examination of the U.S. Constitution itself. As remarkable as that sounds, that is essentially the problem that Gerald Frug and David Barron have set out to remedy for local governments in their superb City Bound. In the book, Frug and Barron take a comprehensive, empirical look at the legal frameworks under which cities and other local governments operate, providing an invaluable roadmap for understanding the hidden architecture of legal constraints that-largely without notice-are shaping America's urban future. Why this kind of analysis has rarely been …

A Review Of Richard A. Posner, How Judges Think (2008), Jeffrey S. Sutton

Michigan Law Review

I was eager to enter the judiciary. I liked the title: federal judge. I liked the job security: life tenure. And I could tolerate the pay: the same as Richard Posner's. That, indeed, may have been the most flattering part of the opportunity-that I could hold the same title and have the same pay grade as one of America's most stunning legal minds. Don't think I didn't mention it when I had the chance. There is so much to admire about Judge Posner-his lively pen, his curiosity, his energy, his apparent understanding of: everything. He has written 53 books, more …

The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching & Scholarship, Robin Boyle

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

BRITTANY FLOWE: Welcome everyone. I am Brittany Flowe, the Lead Articles editor of the Mercer Law Review. On behalf of all the students and faculty, we are truly grateful for your presence here today. We are excited and honored to be celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversa­ry of the Legal Writing Institute. Thank you all for being here; we are looking forward to a wonderful panel. Now, I would like to introduce Dean Daisy Hurst Floyd.

DEAN DAISY FLOYD: Thank you everyone. Good morning. It is my great privilege to welcome you to Macon, to Mercer University, and to Mercer University's …

Meeting Students’ Demand For Models Of Good Legal Writing, Patricia Grande Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

First-year legal writing students always plead for model examples of the types of writing we teach. Though most legal writing texts include an appendix of sample legal documents, the students invariably ask for more. They insist that a multitude of samples are needed to fully grasp the structure and organizational approach that is expected of them. Their reasons for wanting models of good legal writing are not without merit. Interoffice memoranda, trial and appellate briefs, as well as the other kinds of legal documents we teach in the first-year writing curriculum are unlike anything our law students have previously …

Leveraging A Library Collection Through Collaborative Digitization Ventures, Femi Cadmus, Fred Shapiro

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.