Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Incorporating Social Science Into Criminal Defense Practice, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

In recent decades, social scientists have created a treasure trove of empirical and sociological data that defenders can and should use to help their clients. Evidence rules, criminal law, and criminal procedure are filled with concepts informed by social science. When is evidence likely to unfairly prejudice a defendant in the eyes of a jury? Do police interact differently with members of minority populations and how should that inform concepts of reasonableness? How easy or difficult is it for people to identify individuals they see during high-stress criminal episodes? How effective are police interrogation tactics at getting at the truth …

Numbers, Patrick Barry

Articles

Numbers can be numbing. Depend too much on them to make your case, pitch your product, or tell your story, and you risk losing your audience. This essay offers a way to way to use numbers—both large and small—in a manner that is at once more compelling and more concrete.

Law Library Blog (November 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Ai Author In Litigation, Julie Cromer Young

Law Faculty Scholarship

In The AI Author in Litigation, Yvette Joy Liebesman and Julie Cromer Young examine whether an autonomous, emancipated artificial intelligence (AI) can meaningfully function as an “author” under the Copyright Act when subjected to the procedural realities of litigation. Moving beyond doctrinal debates over originality and creativity, the Article focuses on the practical and constitutional barriers that arise if an AI is treated as a legal author capable of suing or being sued. The authors analyze challenges involving personal jurisdiction, service of process, standing, discovery, due process, and the availability of remedies such as damages and injunctions. They argue …

Essay: The Fighting Words Doctrine: Alive And Well In The Lower Courts, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

The fighting words doctrine is alive and well in the lower courts. The first part of this article briefly explains how the fighting words doctrine has fared in the U.S. Supreme Court. These results would seem to indicate that it would be rare indeed for a defendant’s words to fall under the fighting words exception. That is not always the case. The next part of this article provides a sampling of decisions in which lower courts have rejected First Amendment-based defenses to disorderly conduct, breach of the peace, or similar charges based on the fighting words doctrine. The final part …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Re-Envisioning Law Student Scholarship, Emily Zimmerman

Catholic University Law Review

This Article recommends that we think more intentionally about how law students’ engagement in scholarship can promote their professional development. In so doing, we should recognize that legal scholarship plays a different role for law students than it does for law professors. Rather than trying to replicate law professors’ relationship with scholarship, the pedagogy of law student scholarship should focus more intentionally on the value of scholarship for law students—most of whom will not become law professors.

This Article suggests that much of the value of scholarship for law students lies in process, rather than product. Rather than thinking …

May It Please The Court: A Longitudinal Study Of Judicial Citation To Academic Legal Periodicals, Brian T. Detweiler

Law Librarian Journal Articles

Part I of this article examines the proportion of reported opinions from U.S. federal and state courts between 1945 and 2018 that cite at least one academic legal periodical, while Part II applies that data beginning in 1970 to compare the proportion of opinions that cite to the flagship journals of 17 law schools selected and hierarchically categorized based on their U.S. News & World Reports rankings. Representing the most elite schools are Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal, the two longest running student-edited journals at arguably the two most prestigious law schools in the United States, followed by …

Debunking The Efficacy Of Standard Contract Boilerplate: Part I, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Many contracts start with an introductory paragraph like this one: THIS AGREEMENT is made and entered into said 5th day of June, 2020, by and between JOHN JONES (hereinafter referred to as "Jones") and MARY SMITH (hereafter referred to as "Smith"), hereinafter referred to together as "the parties." Where do I find my red pen? There are so many problems with this introduction, I might run out of ink.

Bluebooking Environmental Resources, Deborah L. Heller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Five-page tip sheet presented as a table covers how to properly cite environmental material according to the Bluebook. It includes federal and state bills, legislation, and regulations, federal and state administrative adjudications and other administrative material. Updated to the 21st Ed. of the Bluebook.

Basic Bluebooking In Legal Documents, Cynthia Pittson, Deborah L. Heller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Three tip sheets on basic Bluebooking in legal documents presented as tables. The tables include the relevant rules, formulas for the basic citations, and examples for federal and state cases, federal and state statutes, and secondary sources (law review articles, newspaper articles, books and treatises, and other frequently used sources). These were originally developed by Cynthia Pittson for use in the first-year Legal Skills course at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. They have been updated to the 21st Ed. of the Bluebook by Deborah L. Heller.

Dirty Johns: Prosecuting Prostituted Women In Pennsylvania And The Need For Reform, Mckay Lewis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prostitution is as old as human civilization itself. Throughout history, public attitudes toward prostituted women have varied greatly. But adverse consequences of the practice—usually imposed by men purchasing sexual services—have continuously been present. Prostituted women have regularly been subject to violence, discrimination, and indifference from their clients, the general public, and even law enforcement and judicial officers.

Jurisdictions can choose to adopt one of three general approaches to prostitution regulation: (1) criminalization; (2) legalization/ decriminalization; or (3) a hybrid approach known as the Nordic Model. Criminalization regimes are regularly associated with disparate treatment between prostituted women and their clients, high …

Poland’S Challenge To Eu Directive 2019/790: Standing Up To The Destruction Of European Freedom Of Expression, Michaela Cloutier

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 2019, the European Parliament and Council passed Directive 2019/790. The Directive’s passage marked the end of a fouryear- long legislative attempt to impose more liability for copyright violations on Online Service Providers, an effort which was controversial from the start. Online Service Providers fear that the 2019 Directive, especially its Article 17, will completely change the structure of liability on the Internet, forcing providers to adopt expensive content filtering systems. Free speech advocates fear that ineffective filtering technology will infringe upon Internet users’ rights to express themselves, and legal scholars have pointed out the Directive’s inconsistency with prior European …

Research Across The Curriculum: Using Cognitive Science To Answer The Call For Better Legal Research Instruction, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The American Bar Association (ABA), law students, and employers are demanding that law schools do better when teaching legal research. Academic critics are demanding that law professors begin to apply the lessons from the science of learning to improve student outcomes. The practice of law is changing.

Yet, the data shows that law schools are not changing their legal research curriculum to respond to the need of their students or to address the ABA’s mandate. This stagnation comes at the same time as an explosion in legal information and a decrease in technical research skills among incoming students. This article …

A False Sense Of Security: How Congress And The Sec Are Dropping The Ball On Cryptocurrency, Tessa E. Shurr

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Today, companies use blockchain technology and digital assets for a variety of purposes. This Comment analyzes the digital token. If the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) views a digital token as a security, then the issuer of the digital token must comply with the registration and extensive disclosure requirements of federal securities laws.

To determine whether a digital asset is a security, the SEC relies on the test that the Supreme Court established in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. Rather than enforcing a statute or agency rule, the SEC enforces securities laws by applying the Howey test on a fact-intensive …

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall—Biased Impartiality, Appearances, And The Need For Recusal Reform, Zygmont A. Pines

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The article focuses on a troubling aspect of contemporary judicial morality.

Impartiality—and the appearance of impartiality—are the foundation of judicial decision-making, judicial morality, and the public’s trust in the rule of law. Recusal, in which a jurist voluntarily removes himself or herself from participating in a case, is a process that attempts to preserve and promote the substance and the appearance of judicial impartiality. Nevertheless, the traditional common law recusal process, prevalent in many of our state court systems, manifestly subverts basic legal and ethical norms.

Today’s recusal practice—whether rooted in unintentional hypocrisy, wishful thinking, or a pathological cognitive dissonance— …

Antitrust Changeup: How A Single Antitrust Reform Could Be A Home Run For Minor League Baseball Players, Jeremy Ulm

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act to protect competition in the marketplace. Federal antitrust law has developed to prevent businesses from exerting unfair power on their employees and customers. Specifically, the Sherman Act prevents competitors from reaching unreasonable agreements amongst themselves and from monopolizing markets. However, not all industries have these protections.

Historically, federal antitrust law has not governed the “Business of Baseball.” The Supreme Court had the opportunity to apply antitrust law to baseball in Federal Baseball Club, Incorporated v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs; however, the Court held that the Business of Baseball was not …

Law Library Blog (October 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

David Versus Godzilla: Bigger Stones, Jerry Ellig, Richard Williams

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

For four decades, U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders requiring agencies to conduct comprehensive regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for significant regulations to ensure that regulatory decisions solve social problems in a cost-beneficial manner. Yet experience demonstrates that agency RIAs often fail to live up to the standards enunciated in executive orders and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) oversees agency compliance with the executive orders, but OIRA is about half the size it was when it was established in 1980. Regulatory agency staff outnumber OIRA staff by a ratio of 3600 …

Errors And Insights, Patrick Barry

Articles

In Seeing What Other's Don't, the psychologist Gary Klein suggests that only focusing on reducing errors limits our ability to improve. We also need to spend time increasing insights. This short essay applies Klein's approach to writing and editing.

(Not The) Same Old Story: Invisible Reasons For Rejecting Invisible Wounds, Jessica Lynn Wherry

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Thousands of former military servicemembers have been discharged with other-than-honorable discharges due to misconduct that can be traced to a mental health condition. These veterans may request a post-discharge change to their discharge characterization—known as a “discharge upgrade.” Discharge review boards consider discharge upgrade requests and typically (90-99% of the time) deny the requests. In the past few years, the Department of Defense has issued new policy guidance partly in response to the low grant rate and to specifically address the growing understanding of the relationship between misconduct and mental health conditions for military servicemembers. The policy guidance requires the …

Thurgood Marshall In Tennesee: His Defense Of Accused Rioters, His Near-Miss With A Lynch Mob, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

n “Thurgood Marshall in Tennessee: His Defense of Accused Rioters, His Near-Miss with a Lynch Mob,” David L. Hudson Jr. examines a pivotal yet lesser-known episode in the early career of Thurgood Marshall arising from the 1946 Columbia Race Riot in Columbia, Tennessee. The article recounts how a dispute between an African-American Navy veteran and a white store employee escalated into racial violence, mass arrests of more than 100 African Americans, and sweeping law enforcement actions in the Black community. Marshall, working alongside attorneys Z. Alexander Looby, Maurice Weaver, and others, joined the defense of 25 African-American men charged with …

Working On A Literary Text While Teaching Russian In The National Audience Of Law Faculties, Nasiba Niyazova

Review of law sciences

The article considers the need to use a literary text in the study of the Russian language. This will optimize the educational process and improve the quality of education and teaching in the national audience.

Book Review Of Lawyering Skills In The Doctrinal Classroom: Using Legal Writing Pedagogy To Enhance Teaching Across The Law School Curriculum, O.J. Salinas

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Resources For Foreign, Comparative, And International Legal Research, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

In our increasingly globalized world, a legal issue outside of American domestic law can pop up in a variety of circumstances. Commercial transactions, marriage and custody issues, immigration statuses, and more may involve the law of another nation or be governed by an international treaty. This article outlines some resources to help you tackle foreign, comparative, and international legal issues, whenever they arise.

References To Children's Stories And Fairy Tales In Judicial Opinions And Written Advocacy, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

Jones v. State is typical of recent state and federal court decisions that have spiced substantive or procedural points with references to classic children’s stories or classic fairy tales. These literary resources have won places in American popular culture and are likely generally familiar to readers, especially when (as in Jones) the court provides any necessary context explaining the resource’s relevance to the decision.

In previous Journal of The Missouri Bar articles, I have written about judges’ invocation of an array of influential cultural markers that are generally familiar to Americans. These articles explored written opinions that accompanied substantive or …

How I Finally Overcame My Apprehension About Peer Review, Beth H. Wilensky

Articles

I’ll admit it: I was afraid to try peer review in my Legal Practice class. I’ve been teaching legal analysis, writing, and research for 17 years. I know all of the benefits of peer review. I’ve read plenty of scholarship about why and how to do it well. I have space in my syllabus to incorporate it into my teaching. But I’ve been reluctant. I worried that students would be averse to sharing their work with a classmate. I worried that the exercise would embarrass students who felt self-conscious about their writing. And I worried that the truly excellent writers …

Law Library Blog (September 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Pandemic Pause, Heidi K. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.