Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Research Resources For Michigan Criminal Law, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

Few areas of the law are as consequential to the personal lives of those involved as criminal law. The law can, and does, change quickly, and attorneys need to stay abreast of the latest developments to effectively represent their clients. Thankfully, modern government bodies publish current primary law (and many useful secondary sources) online. The sites outlined below will take users to reliable sources of Michigan criminal law and procedure.

Tuesday Morning Detective Work, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

The author describes her process for tracking down information requested by a law student.

Prometheus, Sisyphus, Themis: Three Futures For Legal Education Research, Paul Maharg

Articles & Book Chapters

In almost every jurisdiction regulatory review of legal education has become more complex. It has not been matched by concomitant increase in the sophistication and complexity of the empirical research base, nor in the organisation of that research. As we pointed out in the LETR Report (2013), there are significant gaps in legal educational research. There is little co-ordination of research initiatives between academy and regulatory bodies on a sustained basis. There is little organisation by the academy of the increasing volume of research that it produces on legal education: a significant lack of longitudinal studies, very few ongoing and …

Review Of Draft No. 4, Beth Hirschfelder Wilensky

Reviews

"Draft No. 4" is an essay collection by John McPhee about his long career as a journalist for The New Yorker. This book review uses the essay collection as a jumping-off point to discuss the similarities and differences between legal writing and long-form journalism, and what legal writers can learn about the writing process from journalists like McPhee.

Sustainable And Open Access To Valuable Legal Research Information: A New Framework, Alex Zhang, James Hart

Faculty Scholarship

This article evaluates the current status of access to foreign and international legal research information, analyzes the challenges that information providers have experienced in providing valuable and sustainable access, and proposes a model that would help create and facilitate effective and sustainable access to valuable foreign, comparative, and international legal information.

Buried Treasure: Excavating Foreign Law From Civil Pleadings Filed In U.S. Federal Courts, Loren Turner

Articles

The Animal Science case is one of many cases in U.S. federal courts wherein parties rely in some measure on foreign law as part of a claim or defense. Yet, none of our legal research databases tracks and catalogs the foreign law and legal analysis filed in our courts. In fact, none of our legal research databases even provides an efficient way to find the foreign law and legal analysis filed in our courts. Despite the increasing frequency of cross-border litigation and the various types of cases that trigger a need to determine foreign law, access to foreign law as …

At The Intersection Of Health And Justice: How The Health Of American Indians And Alaska Natives Is Disproportionately Affected By Disparities In The Criminal Justice System, Bette Jacobs, Mehgan Gallagher, Nicole Heydt

Belmont Law Review

American Indian and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) are a neglected population in the United States. Their health and welfare needs are often swept aside and, because of historical treaty agreements with the United States government, they suffer disparities in the justice system and, consequently, poor health. A deep look into everyday life for an AI/AN tells a story of poverty and relatively low life expectancy, proportionately high incidences of disease, high rates of incarceration, and prolific alcohol and substance abuse. AI/ANs are incarcerated at a higher rate proportionately than their white counterparts. They experience harsher sentences, due in part to jurisdictional …

Title Vii Discrimination Protections & Lgbt Employees: The Need For Consistency, Certainty & Equality Post-Obergefell, Regina Hillman

Belmont Law Review

This article explores employment protections against discriminatory practices for LGBT Americans. Factors such as jurisdiction, employment type, and geography all play a role in whether or not protections are extended to LGBT individuals. This article also examines Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the role of the EEOC in enforcing federal laws prohibiting discrimination, as well as executive orders and protections.

The Wake Of Wayfair: Addressing State Taxation Issues After South Dakota V. Wayfair., Leigh Stanfield

Belmont Law Review

This student note examines the impact of e-commerce on state tax revenue. It explores internet retail jurisprudence, and the South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. decision. It explores state approaches to taxing e-commerce revenue, as well as continuing issues in e-commerce taxation, and concludes with a model provision.

All Health Care Is Local: Exploring The Roles Of Cities And States In Health Care Delivery And Reform Keynote #1, Jeremy Faison

Belmont Health Law Journal

I'm going to talk to you about the legal justification for Tennessee to expand cannabis for certain sick Tennesseans. I believe I can prove to you if I had enough time that a prohibition on the cannabis plant was an unjust law from the beginning. So first of all the justification of what I'm doing, the justification starts with one thing. First of all, it was prevalent and commonplace in society for 5,000 years that we can trace humankind and nothing was bad. The next justification of what I'm doing is: America is there. In a poll from January 11th …

Defusing Bullies, Heidi K. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Stylish Legal Citation, Alexa Z. Chew

Working Papers

Can legal citations be stylish? Is that even a thing? Yes, and this Article explains why and how. The usual approach to writing citations is as a separate, inferior part of the writing process, a perfunctory task that satisfies a convention but isn’t worth the attention that stylish writers spend on the “real” words in their documents. This Article argues that the usual approach is wrong. Instead, legal writers should strive to write stylish legal citations—citations that are fully integrated with the prose to convey information in a readable way to a legal audience.

Prominent legal style expert Bryan Garner …

Between Brady Discretion And Brady Misconduct, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court’s decision in Brady v. Maryland presented prosecutors with new professional challenges. In Brady, the Supreme Court held that the prosecution must provide the defense with any evidence in its possession that could be exculpatory. If the prosecution fails to timely turn over evidence that materially undermines the defendant’s guilt, a reviewing court must grant the defendant a new trial. While determining whether evidence materially undermines a defendant’s guilt may seem like a simple assessment, the real-life application of such a determination can be complicated. The prosecution’s disclosure determination can be complicated under the Brady paradigm because the …

References To Television Shows In Judicial Opinions And Written Advocacy (Part I), Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Allowing Autistic Academics The Freedom To Be Autistic: The Ada And A Neurodiverse Future In Pennsylvania And Beyond, Brandon Stump

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article focuses on those Autistics who have the ability, in terms of intellect credential, and measurable skill, to enter the workplace. In particular, this Article addresses Autistics who are academics and teach at the collegiate level, specifically in the American legal classroom. I have chosen a narrow subset of a broad community to make a targeted argument for employment protection which can help expand the law for the entire Autistic community. While we are different than neurotypically developed persons, "[m]any with [Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)] have a high attention to detail and the ability to sustain intense concentration in …

Slow Lawyering: How Law Practitioners Can Slow Down In A High-Speed World And Why It Matters, Susan Greene

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Standing In The Line Of Fire: Compulsory Campus Carry Laws And Hostile Speech Environments, Cameron W. Arnold

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bibliography Of The Writings (1976-2017) Of Robert Raphael, Joel Fishman

Law Faculty Publications

The following bibliography is based on the card catalogs of the Allegheny County and Jenkins Law Libraries as well as the collection located in the first library. Robert Raphael (1922-2019) was born in New York City, but spent his whole life in Pittsburgh, PA. He is known by his colleagues as the “father of divorce law” along with Albert Momjian in creating the Divorce Code of 1980.

Bibliography Of The Writings (1979-2019) Of Lynne Z. Gold-Bikin, Joel Fishman

Law Faculty Publications

Lynne Z. Gold-Bikin (1938-2019) was a major family law practitioner in Pennsylvania for the last 40 years. Members of the section paid tribute to her in the October 2018 issue of the Pennsylvania Family Lawyer as did Judge Daniel Clifford who gave a Memorial Minute published in the Spring 2019 issue of the Pennsylvania Family Lawyer from which the following is summarized.

On The Values Of Words, Michael J. Cedrone

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Mary Norris' Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen and Kory Stamper's Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries use observations about language as a touchstone for a nuanced examination of deeper truths about language, culture, and law in a changing world. In so doing, they point to deeper truths about the use of language and its consequences. Law students, lawyers, and law professors will benefit from journeying with Norris and Stamper towards the goal of crafting prose that is clear, accurate, and inclusive. In particular, the legal community will benefit from the books' efforts to define …

Fingerprints: An Impressionistic And Empirical Evaluation Of Richard Posner’S Impact On Contract Law, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

Richard Posner’s retirement after 36 years on the federal bench presents an ideal opportunity to reflect on his sometimes controversial career as a scholar and a judge. Since his principal scholarly work, Economic Analysis of Law, has been cited in legal scholarship over 7500 times a good working hypothesis is that his impact on law has been substantial. This article considers his impact on contract law. Two lines of research were conducted: one line explores the impact of Judge Posner’s scholarly writings on judicial opinions; the other line examines the impact of his opinions on other courts.

Masthead

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Books, Debate, Specificity, Neal Kumar Katyal

Michigan Law Review

Foreword to Volume 117, Issue 6 of the Michigan Law Review.

Feminist Statutory Interpretation, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Leading Canadian scholar Ruth Sullivan describes the act of statutory interpretation as a mix of art and archeology. The collection, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions, affirms her assessment. If the act of statutory interpretation requires us to deploy our interdisciplinary talents, at least somewhat unmoored from the constraints of formal expressions of legal doctrine, why haven’t feminists been more inclined to write about statutory interpretation? Put another way, some scholars acknowledge that judges “are subtly influenced by preconceptions, endemic privilegings and power hierarchies, and prevailing social norms and ‘conventional’ wisdom.” Those influences become the background for how judges read legislation. …

“Unknown Symbols”: Online Legal Research In The Age Of Emoji, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last decade, emoji and emoticons have made the leap from text messaging and social media to legal filings, court opinions, and law review articles. However, emoji and emoticons’ growth in popularity has tested the capability of online legal research systems to properly display and retrieve them in search results, posing challenges for future researchers of primary and secondary sources. This article examines current display practices on several of the most popular online legal research services (including Westlaw Edge, Lexis Advance, Bloomberg Law, Fastcase, HeinOnline, and Gale OneFile LegalTrac), and suggests effective workarounds for researchers.

Beyond The Annals Of Murder: The Life And Works Of Thomas M. Mcdade, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

Thomas M. McDade is best known (if not well-known enough) for his seminal 1961 reference bibliography, The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900. Beyond that singular text on early American murder trial accounts, though, lies more than 70 additional publications on American legal history, law enforcement, and literature, gathered together for the first time in an annotated bibliography of McDade’s lesser-known writings. The article also examines McDade’s fascinating life and varied career as an early FBI agent, World War II veteran, corporate executive, and true crime chronicler.

Goodrich-Amram: Who Were They?, Joel Fishman

Law Faculty Publications

Generations of Pennsylvania judges and lawyers have used Goodrich-Amram Procedural Rules with Forms as a major treatise on the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure. The authors wrote the first edition beginning in 1940 as Pennsylvania Procedural Rules Service, with Forms: Civil Practice Under the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure, published by Matthew Bender and Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company. There were four volumes with updates published as pamphlets refilling the volumes as needed. Two additional publications were A 1963 Supplement to the Rules Binder (binder) and a September 1977 pamphlet to the Rules Binder.2 In 1976, a …

When Big Brother Becomes “Big Father”: Examining The Continued Use Of Parens Patriae In State Juvenile Delinquency Proceedings, Emily R. Mowry

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The U.S. Constitution grants American citizens numerous Due Process rights; but, historically, the Supreme Court declined to extend these Due Process rights to children. Initially, common-law courts treated child offenders over the age of seven in the same manner as adult criminals. At the start of the 20th century, though, juvenile reformers assisted in creating unique juvenile courts that used the parens patriae doctrine and viewed children as delinquent youths in need of judicial parental guidance rather than punishment. Later, starting in 1967, the Supreme Court released multiple opinions extending certain constitutional Due Process rights to children in juvenile delinquency …

Canines At The Company, Felines At The Factory: The Risks And Rewards Of Incorporating Service Animals And Companion Animals Into The Workplace, Rebecca J. Huss

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

With unemployment rates at historically low levels, the ability of an employer to attract and retain productive employees is key to a company’s success. Simultaneously, the percentage of persons in the United States with disabilities is increasing. Additionally, many persons without disabilities consider allowing companion animals at work a valuable employee benefit. This Article focuses on the legal and workplace implications of incorporating service animals and companion animals at work.

This Article begins by analyzing when an employer must accommodate a request by an employee with a disability to be accompanied by a service animal at work under the Americans …

Judges Do It Better: Why Judges Can (And Should) Decide Life Or Death, Andrew R. Ford

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Following its decision in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States has attempted to standardize procedures that states use to subject offenders to the ultimate penalty. In practice, this attempt at standardization has divided capital sentencing into two distinct parts: the death eligibility decision and the death selection decision. The eligibility decision addresses whether the sentencer may impose the death penalty, while the selection decision determines who among that limited subset of eligible offenders is sentenced to death. In Ring v. Arizona, the Court held for the first time that the Sixth Amendment right to …