Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Breaking Into The Academy: The 2000-2002 Michigan Journal Of Race & Law Guide For Aspiring Law Professors, Gabriel J. Chin, Denise C. Morgan

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Once you have set your sights upon a career in law teaching you must determine how best to position yourself to obtain a job in the field. The answer is to write, publish, and otherwise bolster your credentials. Write as many papers with as many of your law school professors as you can; write onto a journal and have your article published; work as a research assistant for a professor and write with him or her; work for a judge and write bench memos and draft opinions; work for a public interest organization or a law firm and publish scholarship …

Joe Grano: The 'Kid From South Philly' Who Educated Us All (In Tribute To Joseph D. Grano), Yale Kamisar

Articles

No serious student of police interrogation and confessions can write on the subject without building on Professor Joseph D. Grano's work or explaining why he or she disagrees with him (and doing so with considerable care). Nor is that all.

Bye-Bye Bluebook?, Pamela Lysaght, Grace C. Tonner

Articles

In March 2000, Aspen Law & Business published a new citation manual, the ALWD Citation Manual-A Professional System of Citation.' Developed mostly as a "restatement of citation," the ALWD Citation Manual not only provides the legal academy with a text that simplifies teaching legal citation, but also provides judges and lawyers with a helpful desktop reference book. This article explains why a new citation manual was created and highlights some of its significant features?

Phoebe's Lament (Symposium: Empirical Research In Commercial Transactions), James J. White

Articles

Assume a bright hypothetical social scientist - call her Phoebe - who is completely ignorant of legal research as it is practiced in today's law schools. Phoebe might speculate about legal research as follows. First, she would note that the law schools are joined with and are the exclusive source of the practitioners of a profession. Second, she would note that commercial and legal actors rub up against and are influenced by the law in countless ways every day. Third, she might remark that this interaction occurs practically on the doorsteps of our law schools. Unlike anthropologists, who may have …

Avoiding Common Problems In Using Teaching Assistants: Hard Lessons Learned From Peer Teaching Theory And Experience, Edward R. Becker, Rachel Croskery-Roberts

Articles

A majority of American law schools rely on teaching assistants to help administer first-year legal writing, research, and analysis (LWRA) courses. Specifically, surveys jointly conducted by the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) consistently detail the extensive use many LWRA professors make of teaching assistants. Likewise, Julie Cheslik recognized in her article about her 1994 survey on the use of TAs in the typical LWRA course that "[o]ne of the most prevalent uses of peer teachers in the law school setting is the employment of upper-level law students as teaching assistants in the first-year …

Bibliography Of Principal Publications By Professor John H. Jackson As Of February 1999, Michigan Journal Of International Law

Michigan Journal of International Law

A bibliography.

Fuller And Language, Joseph Vining

Book Chapters

His style made him distinctive. His substance made him distinctive. The two crossed, were genetically related as we now say. Style and substance each drew on and was implied by the other. One point of their crossing was his sense of the nature of human language; what language was and could be, what it was not and could never be. In 1930, early in his work, Fuller took up the problem of language in a series of articles. Toward the end of his time he republished this initial ground-establishing effort as the little book we now have, Legal Fictions, …

Introduction: Critical Race Praxis And Legal Scholarship, Keith Aoki, Margaret Chon

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The publication of this symposium issue is an occasion for three distinct and yet related celebrations. First, we honor the Western Law Teachers of Color, whose sixth annual meeting on the sublime Oregon Coast in 1998 provided the occasion for organizing the papers published here. Dean Strickland's preface, as well as Professors Linda Greene's and Jim Jones's essays examine the historical significance of this occasion in greater detail. Second, we engage in a festschrift of a particular member of this group-Professor Eric K. Yamamoto -whose publication of a book this year is a significant capstone to fifteen years of scholarship …

From Tokenism To Emancipatory Politics: The Conferences And Meetings Of Law Professors Of Color, Linda S. Greene

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In this paper, the author traces the history of the First National Meetings and conferences since 1969. In Part II, this paper explores the range of meetings and conferences which outlined the development of a proactive agenda for minority student and faculty inclusion within mainstream historically White legal institutions and the evolution of this agenda from one of access to an agenda of security, retention, and the advancement of legal theory and scholarship within and without the established academy. Part III chronicles the maturation of this tradition of independent meetings and conferences of professors of color into a network of …

Legal Writing Scholarship: Point/Counterpoint, Jan M. Levine, Grace C. Tonner

Articles

Perhaps because the field of legal writing has now matured enough so that we professors constitute a critical mass of experienced teachers and scholars, we find ourselves frequently embroiled in debates about legal writing scholarship. What is it? Can we do it? Should we do it? Should it be considered part and parcel of our responsibilities as members of the law school world? To help us better present our shared view that legal writing professors not only can but should produce scholarship, we sought first to take on the role of devil’s advocate, presenting all the rationales we have heard …

Breaking Into The Academy: The 1998-2000 Michigan Journal Of Race & Law Guide For Aspiring Law Professors, Gabriel J. Chin, Denise C. Morgan

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

I was not very far into my law school experience when I realized that my professors had the best job in town-it took me quite a bit longer to discover that I, too, could get in on the deal. Do not misunderstand me-being a law professor is not easy. In fact, when done correctly, the job requires a tremendous amount of intellectual energy, emotional commitment, long hours, and hard work. However, if you enjoy writing, research, public speaking, and developing mentoring relationships, being a law professor could be the career for you. This Article, and the listings of helpful organizations …

Selecting And Designing Effective Legal Writing Problems, Grace C. Tonner, Diana Pratt

Articles

Legal research and writing courses are unlike most substantive first year law school classes in that they teach using the problem method. The success of a legal writing course depends on the quality of the problems. The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance for legal writing professors in designing legal writing problems. The article addresses (1) general considerations in problem design, (2) designing expository problems, (3) designing persuasive problems, and (4) sources of problems. In the first section, we discuss problem design as it relates to the overall goals for teaching the basic forms of legal analysis, …

Tribute To Jerry Israel, Jeffrey S. Lehman

Michigan Law Review

A Tribute to Jerry Israel

A Tribute To Jerry Israel: A Friend With A Messy Office, Debra Ann Livingston

Michigan Law Review

A Tribute to Jerry Israel

Random Thoughts By A Distant Collaborator, Wayne R. Lafave

Michigan Law Review

A Tribute to Jerry Israel

A Tribute To Professor Jerold Israel--My Teacher, My Co-Author, My Good Friend, Paul D. Borman

Michigan Law Review

A Tribute to Jerry Israel

Why I Write, James Boyd White

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Breaking Into The Acadamy: The 1996-97 Michigan Journal Of Race & Law Guide For Aspiring Law Professors, Gabriel J. Chin, Denise C. Morgan

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

I was not very far into my law school experience when I realized that my professors had the best job in town-it took me quite a bit longer to discover that I, too, could get in on the deal. Do not misunderstand me-being a law professor is not easy. In fact, when done correctly, the job requires a tremendous amount of intellectual energy, emotional commitment, long hours, and hard work. However, if you enjoy writing, research, public speaking, and developing mentoring relationships, being a law professor could be the career for you. This Article, and the listings of helpful organizations …

Bouquets For Jerry Israel, Yale Kamisar

Articles

As it turned out, of those asked to write a few words for an issue of the Michigan Law Review honoring Jerry Israel, I was the last to do so. And when I submitted my brief contribution to the Law Review I took the liberty of reading what the four others who paid tribute to Jerry had written. As a result, I feel like the fifth and last speaker at a banquet who listens to others say much of what he had planned to say.

On Becoming A Law Professor, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

Thirty-five years ago, when I first joined a law faculty, only one job description existed for law professors, that for the conventional classroom teacher. In the years since, the opportunities available to lawyers interested in teaching have become a bit more varied. In addition to conventional classroom teachers, a growing number of law teachers are employed by law schools to provide what I shall somewhat misleadingly call clinical instruction.1 Although these comments are addressed mainly to men and women interested in classroom teaching, a few lines about clinical teaching may be in order because the initial question for anyone considering …

Faculty Spotlight, Grace C. Tonner

Other Publications

Professor Grace Tonner talks about her teaching and work.

Mad Midwifery: Bringing Theory, Doctrine, And Practice To Life, Barbara Bennett Woodhouse

Michigan Law Review

I share Judge Edwards' concern about the health of legal education and about lawyers as a force in society. I differ, however, in defining the sickness and prescribing the cure, at least when it comes to teaching. In my view, we need to integrate, not to dichotomize and polarize further, the practical and the impractical, the doctrinal and the theoretical. His critique, and my intuitive response to it, challenged me to examine and articulate where we disagree, based on what I have learned in my five years in the classroom and what it is I hope to accomplish in my …

Lawyers, Scholars, And The "Middle Ground", Robert W. Gordon

Michigan Law Review

The Judge seems to be arguing that both teachers and firm lawyers have been seduced from their real vocation by the fatal attraction of neighboring cultures: the practitioners by the commercial culture of their business clients, the academics by the disciplinary paradigms and prestige of theory in the rest of the university. The "deserted middle ground" is the ground of professional practice - practical, yet also public-minded. Perhaps without straining his thesis too far we could ascribe to Judge Edwards a "republican" view of the legal profession, in which legal scholars, practitioners, judges, legislators, and administrators - despite their separate …

Judge Edwards' Indictment Of "Impractical" Scholars: The Need For A Bill Of Particulars, Sanford Levinson

Michigan Law Review

I can summarize my response as follows: Although Judge Edwards' article certainly seems to be leveling a heartfelt indictment, it lacks a sufficiently precise bill of particulars to know exactly whom he has accused of doing what. Nor does one know exactly what penalty Judge Edwards would exact from the miscreants. Unless he supplies such a bill, his indictment should be dismissed, though, presumably, without prejudice to its reinstatement should he wish to do the hard work of supplying evidence for the charges he set out.

Law Teachers' Writing, James Boyd White

Michigan Law Review

Judge Edwards divides scholarship into the theoretical and the practical, and, while conceding the place and value of both, argues that there is today too much of the former, too little of the latter. The result, he says, is an increasing and unfortunate divide between the life of law practice and the writing of law teachers. One can understand his complaint readily enough, especially coming as it does from an overworked judge. I myself have had perceptions and feelings somewhat like those that seem to animate Judge Edwards, though I would express them differently: for me the relevant line is …

Wayne R. Lafave: Search And Seizure Commentator At Work And Play, Yale Kamisar, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

Starting in 1969,1 we have had the honor and pleasure of co-authoring a goodly number of casebooks, texts, treatises, pocket parts, and annual supplements (more than twenty) with Wayne LaFave.2 On each occasion we have been impressed by the quality of his mind and the judiciousness of his temperament, and impressed as well (and sometimes amazed) by his speed and efficiency.

On Defining Academic Scholarship, Stephen J. Werber

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In 1970, I left the world of a litigation attorney and joined that of academia. One of the first survival lessons that I learned was that, in order to gain tenure and ultimately achieve the pinnacle of full professor, I had to establish myself as a scholar. This, I learned, meant that I had to publish. Perusal of the Personnel Policies of our University, which are similar to those of many others, indicated that a key to a successful career was that I produce "an outstanding record as a scholar." The closest definition to the term in the personnel policies …

On Defining Academic Scholarship, Stephen J. Werber

Cleveland State Law Review

This article seeks to find a definition of “scholarship.” Scholarship, to be fully recognized in the academic community, must address the theory of law - not its application. The basic premise of this essay is that such a definition of scholarship is detrimental to the law teaching profession and demeaning of the legal profession as a whole. As in the sciences, there is a need for both theoretical scholarship and applied scholarship. Both should be recognized as contributing to the overall knowledge, development, and beauty of the law as well as to the justice that that law seeks to achieve.

William W. Bishop, Jr.: Vita And Bibliography, Michigan Journal Of International Law

Michigan Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Liberal Legal Scholarship, Ronald K.L. Collins, David M. Skover

Michigan Law Review

Earl Warren is dead.

A generation of liberal legal scholars continues, nevertheless, to act as if the man and his Court preside over the present. While this romanticism is understandable, it exacts a high price in a world transformed.

The following commentary is a reconstructive criticism written from the perspective of two liberals concerned about the future of "legal liberalism." We present our views as a commentary to emphasize their preliminary character; they represent our current assessment of where liberals stand and where they might redirect their energies.