Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Using Appellate Clinics To Focus On Legal Writing Skills, Timothy Pinto

Articles

Five years ago, I went to lunch with a colleague. I was teaching a legal writing course to 1L students, and he taught in a clinic in which 2L and 3L students were required to write short motions and briefs. Several of his students had taken my writing class as 1Ls, and he had a question for me. "What the heck are you teaching these students?" he asked as we sat down. He explained that several of his students were struggling with preparing simple motions. They were not laying out facts clearly. They were not identifying key legal rules. In …

Opinions In Context: An Exploration Of The Rhetoric Used By Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia And Ruth Bader Ginsburg Regarding The Separation Of Church And State, Catherine Evans

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg represented opposite ends of the political spectrum on the Court, having been appointed by presidents from different parties. Their opinions on cases revolving around the interpretation of separation of church and state do/did not occur within a vacuum, and this paper examines both the context surrounding these opinions and rhetoric of the opinions themselves, closing with a discussion of the former’s effect on the latter. Specifically, four cases (two for each) from the beginning and end of the justices’ careers will be analyzed: Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette …

The Pro Bono Collaborative Project Spotlight: Pro Bono Collaborative Aci Civil Legal Clinics Project Expands To Women's Facility (05-03-2018), Roger Williams University School Of Law

Pro Bono Collaborative Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

“And/Or” And The Proper Use Of Legal Language, Ira P. Robbins

Maryland Law Review

The use of the term and/or is pervasive in legal language. Lawyers use it in all types of legal contexts—including statutes, contracts, and pleadings. Beginning in the 1930s, however, many judges decided that the term and/or should never be used in legal drafting. Ardent attacks on the term included charges that it was vague, if not meaningless, with some authorities declaring it to be a “Janus-faced verbal monstrosity,” an “inexcusable barbarism,” a “mongrel expression,” an “abominable invention,” a “crutch of sloppy thinkers,” and “senseless jargon.” Still today, critics maintain that the construct and/or is inherently ambiguous and should be avoided …

Legal Corpus Linguistics: Gambling To Gaming Language Powers And Probabilities, Kezziah Dale

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Good Critical Reading Strategies Can Improve Legal Writing, Jane Bloom Grisé

Law Faculty Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (May 2018): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

You Could Have Told Me That In The First Place: Five Tips That Might Have Saved A Young Lawyer A Lot Of Trouble, Jay O'Keeffe

University of Richmond Law Review

I will open with a confession: I have very, very little to contribute to legal scholarship. My day-to-day work as a lawyer and a parent keeps me busy. My career to date as a generalist has not led me to develop any great substantive expertise in a particular area of the law. Even my war stories are boring because they cluster around briefs, procedural defaults, and oral arguments. But I do have one thing to offer. I have been lucky in my career to work in “Biglaw,” then at a medium-sized firm of about fifty lawyers, and most recently at …

"Fear Itself": What Legal Writers Can Learn From Fdr's Iconic Moment, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

This article concerns President Roosevelt's timeless faceoff with fear from the inaugural podium in the depths of the Great Depression. After surveying the dire national emergency that faced the new administration more than eight decades ago, the article draws lessons about sound rhetoric for today's legal writers.

What We Still Don't Know About What Persuades Judges – And Some Ways We Might Find Out, Edward R. Becker

Articles

Over 25 years ago, in his foreword to the first volume of Legal Writing, Chris Rideout nailed it: legal writing as actually practiced by lawyers and judges needs to improve, “[b]ut more fundamental inquiry into legal writing...is needed as well.” The intervening decades have seen many laudable efforts on the latter front, as our collective scholarly discipline, then in its infancy, has matured. But one particular question that Rideout identified remains largely unaddressed by our discipline, although recent developments suggest a welcome increase in attention to the topic. Specifically, Rideout explained that our field did not know as much as …

Editing And Empathy, Patrick Barry

Articles

Design begins with empathy.” I recently wrote that on the board during a class for students in the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. I thought it might help them write better briefs. I got the idea from Ilse Crawford, whose work as an interior designer can be seen all over the world—from airport lounges in Hong Kong, to fancy restaurants in London, to pear-shaped stools at IKEA. In Crawford’s view, “empathy is a cornerstone of design.”1 She thinks it is important to understand the spaces and products she creates from the perspective of the …

Freedom Now Or A Future Later: Pitting The Lasting Implications Of Collateral Consequences Against Pretrial Detention In Decisions To Plead Guilty, Lucian E. Dervan

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article examines whether informing defendants about the collateral consequences of criminal convictions influences their decisions to plead guilty, particularly when those future sanctions compete with the immediate incentive of release from pretrial detention. Drawing on prospect theory and temporal discounting theory, the authors hypothesize that delayed collateral consequences will exert limited influence when weighed against certain and immediate gains, such as freedom from jail. Across two experimental studies manipulating guilt status, pretrial detention, and the presentation of collateral consequences, results demonstrate that actual guilt strongly predicts plea decisions, but pretrial detention significantly increases the likelihood of guilty pleas—especially among …

Reclaiming A Great Judge's Legacy, Frank M. Coffin

Maine Law Review

In the legal profession a deep sigh of relief is heard over the land. After roughly two decades of incubation, the long-awaited biography of the great judge has arrived, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge, by Stanford Law Professor Gerald Gunther. The book, in my opinion, is well worth the wait. Nearly 700 pages, plus a hundred more for footnotes, it nevertheless represents a heroic condensation of some 100,000 different items on file at Harvard Law School, including no fewer than 50,000 items of correspondence, 1,000 district court opinions, and nearly 3,000 circuit court opinions. The inventory alone requires …

Citation Literacy, Alexa Z. Chew

Arkansas Law Review

Citation literacy is the ability to read and write citations. That’s it. The rest of this article will unpack what’s in those ten words and why they matter.

The Uses Of Truth: Rapporteur Notes, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr)

CLIHHR Reports & Policy Submissions

These rapporteur notes summarize key themes and discussions from The Uses of Truth, a convening co-hosted by the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR), focusing on truth-telling, accountability, and justice in post-conflict societies. The document captures the perspectives of scholars, advocates, and practitioners exploring the legal, political, and moral dimensions of truth in human rights work.

Acknowledgments, Howard S. Carrier

International Journal on Responsibility

Serious work to bring the International Journal on Responsibility to life commenced during the summer of 2015. In the intervening period between conceptualization and publication, many organizations and individuals within James Madison University and the wider community have contributed enormously to bringing the journal to fruition.

Who Is Responsible For Ethical Legal Education, For What And To Whom? Case Of Kosovo, Sabiha Shala, Gjylbehare Muharti

International Journal on Responsibility

Legal education continues to be one of the most demanded areas of study from the younger generation in Kosovo. As result, the number of law graduates is quite high. On the other hand, the rule of law sector is quite fragile, judges and lawyers are perceived by parts of the society to be ethically dysfunctional. The trust in judicial institutions is quite low. The debate which is going on now is whose main responsibility for such a situation that is. Is the duty of the higher education institutions providing legal education, or is it a responsibility of educational institutions at …

Resolving The Paradox Of Holding People Responsible, Hal Pepinsky

International Journal on Responsibility

Regardless of justification, it is commonplace throughout the U.S. criminal justice system as in everyday life to teach our offenders and children alike that wrong actions “have consequences,” namely, those authority figures promise to impose upon them. We do so in the name of holding people responsible for their actions, or in legal parlance in civil law, holding them accountable or liable. I noticed that in Norwegian, responsibility, accountability and liability translate into one word, ansvar, which I have translated from Germanic to Latin roots as “responsiveness.” In practice, the state of being responsive to others with whom one conflicts …

Political Flip-Flopping, Political Responsibility, Current Governance, And The Disenfranchised, T.Y. Okosun

International Journal on Responsibility

No abstract provided.

What Does Responsibility Mean To Me?, Arun Gandhi

International Journal on Responsibility

No abstract provided.

Who Is Responsible To Do What For Whom? A Letter From The Editor-In-Chief, Terry Beitzel

International Journal on Responsibility

No abstract provided.

Fake News, Post-Truth & Information Literacy, Carol A. Watson, Caroline Osborne, Kristina L. Niedringhaus

Presentations

What is fake news? How did it arise? Why does recognizing fake news matter? How do we create information literate consumers in the legal community? This program will discuss the intersection of fake news and information literacy theory. We’ll provide an overview of the rise and proliferation of fake news including highlights of historical instances; a discussion of the impact of failing to detect fake news; and strategies for creating successful information literacy programming.

Law School News: New Faculty For Fall '18 (04-12-2018), Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, And Judging, Richard L. O'Meara

Maine Law Review

If one were to ask the members of the Maine legal community to define the term “judicial temperament,” many would answer the question simply by referring to Frank Coffin. Judge Coffin's newest book, On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, and Judging, illustrates why the Judge has earned such overwhelming respect. This highly personal work permits readers a glimpse “behind the scenes” at the judicial life of a man who has forged a highly successful career of public service marked by sensitive, fair, and well-reasoned decision-making and by good-humored, collegial relationships with all of his colleagues in the legal community and beyond.

On Appeal: Courts, Lawyering, And Judging, John P. Frank

Maine Law Review

Judge Coffin, a former Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, a former United States Congressman, a former Executive Department administrator, is -- despite those “formers” -- presently a very bright and engaging writer. This compact volume has worthwhile things to say on every aspect of appeals, briefing, argument, deciding the cases, and getting out the opinions. It crisply touches all the appeals phases in which we practitioners are interested.

Maine Law Review Cumulative Index, Leigh Stephens Mccarthy Editor-In-Chief

Maine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Using Problem-Enhanced Library Tours Rather Than Scavenger Hunts To Teach Incoming 1ls About Legal Sources And The Research Process, Paul Mclaughlin

Law Library Faculty Scholarship

Recommended citation: Paul McLaughlin, Using Problem-Enhanced Library Tours Rather than Scavenger Hunts to Teach Incoming 1Ls About Legal Sources and the Research Process, 43 Southeastern L. Libr. 1, 20-22 (2018).

Published in Southeastern Law Librarian (volume 43) (Spring 2018).

Crafting Relatable Tales: Teaching Students The Importance Of Multidisciplinary Legal Research Using A Story Arc Structure, Paul Mclaughlin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Whole Health: A Community Approach To Healthcare Keynote #1, Professor Laura Hermer

Belmont Health Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Legal Writing: Sense And Nonsense, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Professor Abrams authors a column, Writing it Right, in the Journal of the Missouri Bar. In a variety of contexts, the column stresses the fundamentals of quality legal writing - conciseness, precision, simplicity, and clarity.