Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Letters From Readers, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This month’s column features remarks from readers concerning previous columns.

Misguided Metaphors, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Figures of speech, such as the metaphor of the season of spring that President Clinton used in his Inaugural Address, are commonplace in rehtoric. Similarly, such figures have their place in legal writing. Through judicious use of a metaphor, you can provide your readers with a pleasant interlude to the more mundane aspects of. your argument and transform an abstract concept into a powerful visual image.

Road Maps, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

When you write, do your readers know your ultimate destination and how you will get there? Help them trek through your analysis by providing a road map.

Gender Neutral Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Continuation of article above including discussions of personal pronouns, use of "they," and sex-neutral terms.

Gender Neutral, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Regardless of your preference, you should be aware that the use of "he" as a universal gender pronoun now is controversial, and your reader probably will follow only one of two very divergent ideologies. Therefore, fall back on a primary rule of persuasive writing: avoid any words or structures that alienate your rader or distract from your message.

Procrastination, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Panic has set in. The deadline for your brief or memo is now measured in hours rather than days. You think, “Maybe the adrenaline will make me more efficient, but if only I had started earlier!” If you often or occasionally find yourself in this predicament, here are three suggestions to help you avoid it in the future.

Personal Narratives And Racial Distinctiveness In The Legal Academy, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

A small group of legal academicians is embroiled in yet another debate that, to the uninitiated at least, appears to have little or nothing to do with "the law." ¹ This time the issue is the ideology of legal writing style-that is, does a growing, unique body of legal scholarship that draws on the personal experiences of minority faculty and, arguably, reflects the racial oppression these scholars have suffered, produce "distinct normative insights?" ² Professor Patricia Williams of the University of Wisconsin clearly believes that it does.

In her new book, The Alchemy of Race and Rights,³ which is …

Be Plain, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

You are pondering which word to use in a brief. Which should you sue—“supra,” “aforementioned” or “above”? Be cautious of Latin and archaic English words. If you use them, your argument, as well as your reputation may be placed at risk.

Legal Research In A Social Science Setting: The Problem Of Method, T Brettel Dawson

Dalhousie Law Journal

As part of its ongoing process of curriculum development, the Department of Law at Carleton University decided in 1988 that a compulsory course in legal research methods was long overdue in the B.A. Honours degree in Law. Fortified with interest nurtured by methodological debates in feminist scholarship,' experience devilling' for a barrister pending my call to the bar, and practice from instructing a course in legal research and writing while a graduate student, I set about developing the proposed course. No guidelines existed for such a course, beyond the logic that it should complement the socio-legal or legal studies focus …

White Space, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Assist your reader by providing white space for breaks. Consider the readers' response when confronted with a solid page of print. The same page will be less formidable when broken into three or four paragraphs. Logical break points can always be found, even if the whole page deals with just one idea or subject. Offer your readers "footholds. . .[t]o clamber over the trying cliff-face of prose." Facilitate communication by using shorter sentences and paragraphs.

Judges’ Pet Peeves Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The last Scrivener (November issue at page 2257) focused on a leading complaint that four Denver District Court judges identified when I polled them last summer. Recently, I have discussed legal writing problems with a few justices of the Colorado Supreme Court and judges of the Colorado Court of Appeals. This column focuses on some of the concerns voiced by these judges.

Writing For Judges, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Judges’ Pet Peeves I, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Over the summer, I had an opportunity to poll four Denver District Court judges about problems they encounter in the writing attorneys submit to their courtrooms. This column addresses one of their leading complaints.

Getting Organized: Part Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In the July issue (at 1399), the Scrivener focused on the usefulness of the IRAC paradigm. This column will address some of the questions students and colleagues have asked about that paradigm and its applicability to large-scale organization in legal writing.

Getting Organized: Part I, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Good organization is fundamental to effective writing. No matter how brilliant your argument is, it may be misunderstood—or completely ignored—if its organization does not work. The argument becomes accessible to the reader through intelligent organization.

Bold Beginnings, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

However, legal writing should start with a conclusion. The audience of a legal writer consists of critics and skeptics, whether they are partners, opposing counsel or judges. They have neither the time nor patience to try to decipher a writer's conclusion.

Slide Rules, Telegrams And Legal Writing, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Visual and vocal clues are natural forms of human communication. In most instances, the electronic media, which provide instant visual and vocal information, are more efficient and compelling tools for communication than the written word. It is little wonder that we have become a "video" society. With additional technological advancements in electronic communication media, the ability to write may be of little use to the average citizen of the twenty-first century.

Getting Dorothy Out Of Kansas: The Importance Of An Advanced Component To Legal Writing Programs, Barbara J. Cox, Mary Barnard Ray

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Lowering One's Cites: A (Sort Of) Review Of The University Of Chicago Manual Of Legal Citation, Mary I. Coombs

Articles

No abstract provided.

An Integrated First-Year Legal Writing Program, James D. Gordon Iii

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Voices, Values And Community: Some Reflections On Legal Writing, Frank Pommersheim

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Writing In A Different Voice, Elizabeth Perry Hodges

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Footnotes As Product Differentiation, Arthur D. Austin

Vanderbilt Law Review

When Professor Fred Rodell announced his first Goodbye to Law Reviews in 1936, he established the accepted wisdom for law review criticism. Rodell complained that law review literature had two serious defects-style and content. Subsequent criticism has been persistently harsh; the common theme is that "[the extraordinary proliferation of law reviews, most of them student edited and all but a handful very erratic in quality, has been harmful for the nature, evaluation, and accessibility of legal scholarship."

Having exhausted complaints on substance, critics uncovered another mischievous threat. They discovered that articles are Typhoid Marys of an insidious plague-footnotes. Second-rate style …

A Dictionary Of Modern Legal Usage, Lynn Foster

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Legal Writing: Getting It Right And Getting It Written By Mary Barnard Ray And Jill J. Ramsfield, Ruth C. Vance

Seattle University Law Review

Legal Writing: Getting It Right and Getting It Written is a legal writing aid that is in a class by itself. This book does not fall neatly into the five predictable classifications of legal writing texts: those on legal research, those devoted to brief writing and oral argument, those on how to take law examinations and brief cases, those aimed at polishing grammar and style, and those that treat the subject generally. While there is still no single text that will completely cover any legal writing course, the references in Legal Writing obviate the need for a grammar and style …

Thinking (By Writing) About Legal Writing, Philip C. Kissam

Vanderbilt Law Review

The practice of law requires a good amount of original writing,and it is a commonplace today that much of this writing is done rather poorly. Charles Fried, the United States Solicitor General,has implied that much legal writing, especially in appellate briefs,is "turgid and boring."' John Nowak, a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, has reiterated Fred Rodell's classic complaint that the writing in law reviews lacks both style and substance. More fundamentally, Steven Stark, in his Harvard Law Review comment, has argued that the style and substance of most legal writing are flawed by lawyers' ideological commitments to …

Visions Of Practice In Legal Thought, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

This essay contrasts the vision of law practice expressed in the established professional culture with a vision derived from recent Critical legal writing.

Anglo-American Legal Citation: Historical Development And Library Implications, Byron D. Cooper

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Writing From A Legal Perspective By George D. Gopen, Douglas E. Abrams, Jay Wishingrad

Faculty Publications

Criticism of legal writing has come with increasing frequency and stridency in recent years from lawyers and nonlawyers alike. Judges have criticized the writing of advocates, and lawyers have complained about the writing of judges and other lawyers. Law professors have bemoaned both their students' inability to write the King's English5 *1062 and their own tendency to write ‘unintelligible gibberish.’ And all law school graduates have been pilloried by a general public that has grown increasingly resentful of the unnecessary complexity of ‘legalese.

Techniques Of Legal Drafting: A Survival Manual, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to identify and demonstrate various legal drafting concepts and techniques in order to give the law student and legal practitioner a working knowledge of the fundamental principles of legal drafting. Although this article does not purport to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, it is offered to law students and practitioners alike for what it is-a basic survival manual for the aspiring legal draftsman.