Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Supporting And Promoting Scholarly Life In Turbulent Times, A. Benjamin Spencer

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Open Access Advantage For American Law Reviews, James M. Donovan, Carol A. Watson, Caroline Osborne

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Open access legal scholarship generates a prolific discussion, but few empirical details have been available to describe the scholarly impact of providing unrestricted access to law review articles. The present project fills this gap with specific findings on what authors and law reviews can expect.

Articles available in open access formats enjoy an advantage in citation by subsequent law review works of 53%. For every two citations an article would otherwise receive, it can expect a third when made freely available on the Internet. This benefit is not uniformly spread through the law school tiers. Higher tier journals experience a …

Art Of Persuasion: Lessons From An Author Who Shaped Presidential Policy, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

In October of 1962, the world stood on the brink of war as the United States demanded dismantling of offensive medium-range nuclear missile sites that the Soviet Union was constructing in Cuba, potentially within striking range of American cities. From behind-the-scenes accounts, we know that a new book by historian Barbara W. Tuchman, a private citizen who held no government position, contributed directly to the negotiated outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis as the world watched and waited. After chronicling Tuchman's contribution, this article discusses her later public commentary about what she called the "art of writing,"' commentary that holds …

What Do We Owe The Pro Se Litigant?, Nathan A. Preuss

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Creating A Legal Research Audit: Assessing Competency, Gail Partin, Sally Wise

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Finding Mercy Many Miles From The Office, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

This piece is part one of a two-part book review of Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy”. It was originally published as a Blog contribution to the National Association for Public Defense in February of 2015.

10 Tips For Effective Brief Writing, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

The audience is often the best critic, and rarely more so than when the writer is an attorney and the reader is a judge considering the attorney's brief in a case before the court. Here are several judges' suggestions for writing briefs that will help your case. The first tip? Leave the venom at home!

Dunning-Kruger And You: Evaluating Your Technological Competence With The Legal Tech Audit, Jason Tubinis

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

There’s an enormous skill set you must develop as an attorney. One skill that is too often neglected, though, is the ability to utilize technology to ease the burden of all your tasks for the benefit or your firm, your client, and most importantly, yourself.

This paper is a public service announcement, a reminder to question your preconceptions about what you do and how you do it. It’s a cautionary warning, the one discussed previously about the new ABA comment regarding an attorney’s duty of competence regarding technology. Just because you’re doing fine with technology doesn’t mean you can’t be …

Getting Geared Up With Google: Searching Beyond The Search Box, Wendy Moore

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

We have grown accustom to having information readily available via the Internet. Searching is easy; so much so, that you can be surprised when the desired information is not retrieved in the first few search results when doing a basic Google search. When you are trying to retrieve information needed to conduct business or assist a client, you want to find the best results with the least amount of time spent. A basic Google search, while a good place to begin, should not also be the end of your search.

This paper gives you search strategies to apply when a …

From Attorney To Detective: Investigative Web Research, Carol A. Watson

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

As a lawyer, it’s not unusual to be called upon to help a client with personal investigation matters. You might find yourself needing to provide advice on topics ranging from whether a businessman is legitimate to assisting with a search for missing heirs. Since everything is on the internet now that should be a simple task, but it may not be as simple as it seems. If you’ve got the time, you can usually find much investigative information on the web such as criminal records, business records, property ownership, and professional licenses, but you’ll have to be thorough, patient and …

Making Your Life More "Appy" And Productive! Apps And Technology Tips To Make Your Life Easier, Thomas J. Striepe

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Developers are continuously creating apps to meet customer needs however unique they may be. Therefore developers have created a multitude of apps to help attorneys in their professional responsibilities.

This paper will describe various apps that will be beneficial to you in your daily life. It will first review some general productivity apps that will assist you in general day to day tasks, the paper will then provide some productivity apps that have been created specifically for legal practitioners. Finally the paper will discuss some legal research apps and let you know about some miscellaneous apps that will assist you …

Beyond The Law: Connecting With Expertise In Other Fields, Suzanne R. Graham

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

For a variety of reasons, law school graduates might find themselves in need of advanced degrees or continuing education in other disciplines. The how-to and where of navigating to the best, most-current resources and continuing education opportunities in fields beyond the law might be less obvious. The following tips are to provide basic, but vetted, resources for pursuing continuing education in areas outside of the law. Professionals can and should consult with experts in other fields. There is no quick and easy substitute for years of in depth study reinforced by practical application. However, retooling is a reality and the …

Everything Georgia: Cases, Forms, Information, Regulations, Statutes, Maureen Cahill

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Primary law (case decisions, statutes, regulations); forms; pathways through the bureaucracy; corporate, financial, criminal justice and licensing information—lots of this is (mostly) freely available on the Web. In Georgia, government and university sites provide most of this valuable information, with government sites usually offering current data and universities filling in important historical material.

Understanding Political Systems: A Comment On Methods Of Comparative Research, T. Koopmans

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Conveying The Merits Of Print Sources To The Google Generation, Paul Jerome Mclaughlin Jr.

Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Teaching And Assessing Professional Communication Skills In Law School, Denitsa R. Mavrova Heinrich

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Are We There Yet? Aligning The Expectations And Realities Of Gaining Competency In Legal Writing, Sherri Lee Keene

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Conveying The Merits Of Print Sources To The Google Generation, Paul Mclaughlin

Law Library Faculty Scholarship

Published in ALL-SIS Newsletter (Volume 34, Issue 2).

Wanting To Do More But Bound To Do Less: A Law Librarian's Dilemna, Paul Mclaughlin

Law Library Faculty Scholarship

The role of the law librarian has changed from managing the contents of a library’s collection of books to knowing how to find information sources located around the world contained in a variety of formats, taking part in instruction, and participating in networking activities. Law librarians are constrained by legal and professional codes. If they are cautious, law librarians can assist, instruct, and reach out to public patrons and students while operating within the professional guidelines that govern them.

Understanding The Tethered Generation: Next Gens Come To Law School, Mary Ann Becker

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

Wanting To Do More But Bound To Do Less: A Law Librarian’S Dilemma, Paul Mclaughlin

Scholarly Works

The role of the law librarian has changed from managing the contents of a library’s collection of books to knowing how to find information sources located around the world contained in a variety of formats, taking part in instruction, and participating in networking activities. Law librarians are constrained by legal and professional codes. If they are cautious, law librarians can assist, instruct, and reach out to public patrons and students while operating within the professional guidelines that govern them.

Not Your Mother's Will: Gender, Language, And Wills, Karen J. Sneddon

Articles

“Boys will be boys, but girls must be young ladies” is an echoing patriarchal refrain from the past. Formal equality has not produced equality in all areas, as demonstrated by the continuing wage gap. Gender bias lingers and can be identified in language. This Article focuses on Wills, one of the oldest forms of legal documents, to explore the intersection of gender and language. With conceptual antecedents in pre-history, written Wills found in Ancient Egyptian tombs embody the core characteristics of modern Wills. The past endows the drafting and implementation of Wills with a wealth of traditions and experiences. The …

Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing’S Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

For Patients And Profits: Ethical Astuteness And The Business Of Dialysis, Joshua E. Perry

Belmont Law Review

The view of ethical astuteness introduced and outlined in this paper aims to add value for a firm in the healthcare business – with a particular application to a for-profit organization providing dialysis services – by addressing two chief concerns: A.) The competing priorities between the patient’s interest in the healthcare encounter and the investor’s interest in generating a return on profits; and B.) The vulnerabilities of a financially-conflicted, for-profit healthcare provider to an allegation of medical malpractice.

The Great Tactician: The Chief Justice, Obamacare, And Walking The Tightrope Of Partisan Politics, Katherine H. Blankenship

Belmont Law Review

This note argues that true judicial restraint is a fictional impossibility. Any practice of judicial restraint is at the very same moment an exercise of judicial activism because a judge cannot approach the law from a truly objective, mechanical position. Every judicial opinion is influenced not only by the political and moral vantage point of the judge, but also the judge’s policy and societal concerns. This thesis is illustrated by a case study of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, and, specifically, Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion regarding the individual mandate and the Medicaid provision of the Affordable Care Act. …

Our Patient System And Health Care Information Technology: Valuable Incentive Or Impediment To Innovation?, Gary Montle, Ryan Levy, Margaret Rowland

Belmont Law Review

Patentable inventions have often been transformative, but the pace of such innovation has changed exponentially in the last thirty years. The patent law still seeks to reward ingenuity and nowhere should this maxim be truer than in the area of health information technology. But the pace and scope of changes in that arena have made rewarding that ingenuity with a patent increasingly difficult. The courts have struggled to apply patent laws to technology that is new and novel to a fault. This Article seeks to address how it is possible to continue to reward ingenuity in a field where progress …

Gestational Surrogacy Contracts In Tennessee: Freedom Of Contract Concerns & Feminist Principles In The Balance, Jennifer S. White

Belmont Law Review

Drawing upon feminist theory and principles of freedom of contract, this Note proposes a new statutory framework for addressing surrogacy in the state of Tennessee. Part I provides a balanced discussion of why couples choose surrogacy as well as varying types of surrogacy available to individuals. Part II explores the judicial and legislative responses toward surrogacy contracts in the United States and discusses significant surrogacy litigation that continues to shape the public policy arguments surrounding this issue. Part III provides background on Tennessee’s approach to the right to privacy as well as recent surrogacy case law and legislation. Part IV …

Defining Experiential Legal Education, David I.C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article offers in Part I the major sources for a possible new definition of experiential learning, and describes the limitations of the definitional elements that we currently have. Part II argues that the definitions we currently have are not only limited but their limitations are being further exposed by the growth and variety in experiential learning opportunities currently being offered in many law schools. Part III offers a new definition for experiential learning in law, together with a series of questions that can be used in applying the definition. Finally, Part IV offers application of the new definition to …

"Teaching" Formation Of Professional Identity, David I.C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article is my attempt to provide a guide to what professional identity formation is—as distinct from more familiar concepts of professionalism and ethics—and what legal educators are doing, and could do in the future, to foster this sort of professional formation in their courses and curricula. In Part I, I offer some background and history of the topic, which supports a new definition provided in the Article for lawyer professional identity formation. I describe in Part II what some schools are doing to “teach” formation of professional identity and argue that those efforts have some significant limitations. I argue …

Fourth Colonial Frontier Legal Writing Conference: Teaching The Academically Underprepared Law Student [Foreword], Jan M. Levine

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.