Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

The Holy Grail? Designing And Teaching An Integrated Doctrine And Drafting Course, Claire C. Robinson May

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

I’ve long considered teaching doctrine and skills together in a single course to be the holy grail of legal education. If we could do so successfully, we might make significant strides in providing a legal education that better prepares our students to be practicing lawyers. In spring 2016, my colleague Professor April Cherry and I took the plunge and collaboratively offered a course titled Estates and Trusts: Doctrine and Drafting at our institution, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. This essay describes our experience and lessons learned pursuing the holy grail.

The Art Of The Effective Reply, Peter M. Mansfield

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Shot Selection, Patrick J. Barry

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

The Indelible Mark Of Plagiarism: Why Is It So Difficult To Make It Stop?, Brenda D. Gibson

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Generation Z Goes To Law School: Teaching And Reaching Law Students In The Post-Millennial Generation, Laura P. Graham

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Enough Said: A Proposal For Shortening Supreme Court Opinions, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

The role of the judiciary, Chief Justice Marshall famously advised, is “to say what the law is.” Yet, how often do the justices issue a written opinion that ordinary Americans can understand? The Supreme Court increasingly issues lengthy and complex opinions, often containing multiple concurring and dissenting opinions. These opinions can be as confusing as they are verbose.

“To Say What the Law Is Succinctly: A Brief Proposal,” analyzes the justices’ legal writing. Are the justices effective in saying what the law is? Insufficient attention has been devoted to evaluating the justices’ writing and their efficacy at communicating the law. …

When Law Calls, Does Science Answer? A Survey Of Distinguished Scientists & Engineers, Shari Seidman Diamond, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

Sound legal decision-making frequently requires the assistance of scientists and engineers. The survey we conducted with the cooperation of the American Academy examines the views of the legal system held by some of the nation’s most distinguished scientists and engineers, what motivates them to participate or to refuse to assist in lawsuits when asked, and their assessment of their experiences when they do participate. The survey reveals that a majority of the responding scientists and engineers will agree to participate when asked, and when they turn down requests, the most common reasons are lack of time and absence of relevant …

Collaboration With Doctrinal Faculty To Introduce Creac, Beth Hirschfelder Wilensky

Articles

When legal writing professors introduce CREAC (or IRAC, TREAT, etc.), our examples necessarily use some area of substantive law to demonstrate how the pieces of legal analysis fit together. And when we ask students to try drafting a CREAC analysis, they also have to learn the relevant substantive law first. Students might be asked to analyze whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor or whether the elements of a tort claim are satisfied. But that means that students need to learn the relevant substantive doctrine while they are also grappling with the basics of CREAC. In the language …

A Structural Approach To Case Synthesis, Fact Application, And Persuasive Framing Of The Law, Lara Gelbwasser Freed, Joel Atlas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Lawyering-skills courses, although typically writing-focused, address a wide array of topics. Indeed, to prepare an effective legal document, students must not only write well but analyze well. And, although teaching the pure-writing aspects of the course is certainly a challenge, teaching the analysis-related skills is often the most difficult.

Among the thorniest of these skills are synthesizing cases, applying facts, and persuasively framing the law. Professors struggle to teach these skills, and students consistently struggle to understand and implement them. To lighten the burden for both professors and students, we have approached these skills structurally and, in doing so, have …

Leaving The Land Of Tweets, Texts, And Emojis: The Collaborative Writing Skills Assignment, A Vehicle For Reinforcing Grammar And Punctuation Rules, Lynn Su

Articles & Chapters

Technology has transformed much of ordinary communication into written rapid-ire shorthand. More time is devoted to tweets and emoji-laden texts, and less time is spent talking on the phone. Capitalization and proper punctuation are often abandoned in modern-day communication, and abbreviations such as FOMO, fear of missing out, and YOLO, you only live once, abound. First-year law students are experts in this new style of writing, adept at the grammar and punctuation shortcuts that pervade tweets and texts.

The Robot-Transporter: Sex Trafficking, Autonomous Vehicles, And Criminal Liability For Manufacturers, Olivia Phillips

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Despite global condemnation, sex trafficking continues to plague our world. Even in developed countries, the problem persists. Technological advancements, like the Internet, have spurred the development of organized sex trafficking networks and have made “transactions” easier. Although law enforcement agencies have tried to adapt their investigative techniques to combat the problem, developments in technology move at a much quicker rate.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will present a new set of challenges for law enforcement agencies in the fight against sex trafficking. In the not-too-distant future, AVs, or “self-driving cars,” will dominate the roadways. An AV will be completely aware of the …

Fire, Aim, Ready! Militarizing Animus: “Unit Cohesion” And The Transgender Ban, Eric Merriam

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

President Trump’s currently litigated “transgender ban,” which excludes transgender persons from military service, is premised in part upon a claim that transgender persons’ presence in the military adversely affects “unit cohesion.” This use of identity- based “unit cohesion” as a justification for excluding a group from military service is the latest episode in a long history of the government asserting “unit cohesion” to justify excluding people from military service based on their identities. This Article contends that unit cohesion, when premised on identity, is always an impermissible justification for exclusion from military service because it is unconstitutional animus. Though …

The Need To Revisit Legal Education In An Era Of Increased Diagnoses Of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity And Autism Spectrum Disorders, Heidi E. Ramos-Zimmerman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The ever-fluctuating rhetoric from experts, in the field of neurodevelopmental disorders, has led to outdated notions and perplexity surrounding attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This Article tries to clarify some of the confusion. Better understanding of these disorders is imperative for today’s law professor, since law schools are likely admitting more students diagnosed with ADHD and ASD. This Article discusses the need for change in legal instruction and explores the link between the two disorders. An examination of recent history illuminates some of the commonly held misunderstandings and highlights the disparity in the diagnoses of ADHD …

Front Matter

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

The Uncertain Status Of The Manifest Disregard Standard One Decade After Hall Street, Stuart M. Boyarsky

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) enables parties to obtain quick and final resolution to disputes without incurring the costs, delays, and occasional publicity of litigation. Indeed, section 10 of the FAA enumerates four specific grounds on which courts may vacate arbitral awards: corruption, fraud, impartiality, and misconduct or incompetence. Yet over the past 60 years, a debate has raged over the existence of an additional ground: the arbitrator’s manifest disregard of the law.

The Supreme Court first enounced this standard in dicta in its 1953 decision in Wilko v. Swan. Over next four decades, every federal circuit court slowly …

Visibly (Un)Just: The Optics Of Grand Jury Secrecy And Police Violence, Nicole Smith Futrell

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Police violence has become more visible to the public through racial justice activism and social justice advocates’ use of technology. Yet, the heightened visibility of policing has had limited impact on transparency and accountability in the legal process, particularly when a grand jury is empaneled to determine whether to issue an indictment in a case of police violence. When a grand jury decides not to indict, the requirement of grand jury secrecy prevents public disclosure of the testimony, witnesses, and evidence presented to the grand jury. Grand jury secrecy leaves those who have seen and experienced the act of police …

Coinsensus: The Need For Uniform National Virtual Currency Regulations, Anisha Reddy

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Google search volume for bitcoin and bitcoin-related keywords increased by as much as 1000 percent in 2017 from previous years. This increased interest comes hand-in-hand with increased regulatory and legislative scrutiny. Currently, there is disparate regulation for virtual currencies across national and state borders alike. States’ promulgation of various and incongruous virtual currency regulations have forced service providers to withdraw from different states within the country. However, transactions are not contained within state lines, and disparate state-by-state regulation is impracticable.

The Uniform Law Commission recognized the need for uniform guidance for those entering the North American market and drafted the …

Evaluating Shepard’S, Keycite, And Bcite For Case Validation Accuracy, Paul Hellyer

Library Staff Publications

This study evaluates and compares how accurately three legal citators (Shepard’s, KeyCite, and BCite) identify negative treatment of case law, based on a review of 357 citing relationships that at least one citator labeled as negative. In this sample, Shepard’s and KeyCite missed or mislabeled about one-third of negative citing relationships, while BCite missed or mislabeled over two-thirds. The citators’ relative performance is less clear when examining the most serious citator errors, examples of which can be found in all three citators.

Recalibrating Cy Pres Settlements To Restore The Equilibrium, Michael J. Slobom

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Class action settlement funds become “non-distributable” when class members fail to claim their share of the settlement or the cost of distribution exceeds the value of individual claims. Before 1974, parties had two options for disposing of non-distributable funds: escheatment to the state or reversion to the defendant. Both options undermine unique objectives of the class action—namely, compensating small individual harms and deterring misconduct.

To balance the undermining effects of escheatment and reversion, courts incorporated the charitable trust doctrine of cy pres into the class action settlements context. Cy pres distributions direct non-distributable settlement funds to charities whose work aligns …

Civility Reboot: Can Lawyers Learn To Be Nicer To One Another, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Avatars, Acting, And Imagination: Bringing New Techniques Into The Legal Classroom, Joy Kanwar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Are Universities Schools? The Case For Continuity In The Regulation Of Student Speech, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

Are universities schools? The question seems almost silly to ask: o f course universities are schools. They have teachers and students, like schools. They have grades, like schools. There are classes and extracurricular activities, also like schools. But recent writings on the issue of ₀₄ free speech on campus" have raised the improbable specter that universities are less educational institutions than they are public forums like parks and sidewalks, where a free-wheeling exchange o f ideas and opinions takes place, unrestricted by any sense of academic mission or school disciplinc.¹ Some of this rhetoric is of course exaggerated, and …

General Legal Thesaurus – Grounds For The Monosemantic Terms, G. Gulyamova

Review of law sciences

This article discusses the legal vocabulary, terminology and its actual problems, legal dictionaries, some shortcomings in the field of translation, as well as general legal thesaurus in law.

General Legal Thesaurus – Grounds For The Monosemantic Terms, G. Gulyamova

Review of law sciences

This article discusses the legal vocabulary, terminology and its actual problems, legal dictionaries, some shortcomings in the field of translation, as well as general legal thesaurus in law.

Table Of Contents And Masthead, Cameron Fraser

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

One Judge's Ten Tips For Effective Brief Writing (Part I), Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

In his years on the federal bankruptcy court bench, Judge Michael had read his share of briefs and other filings. Experience led him to write "Ten Tips for Effective Brief Writing," and to share them on the Court's website to guide counsel who appear before him. He directed the Gordon parties to Tip# 9, "Leave the Venom at Home." "Whether you like (or get along well with) your opposition," the Tip advises, "has little to do with the merits of a particular case. The most effective attack you can make is to persuade ... me that the other side is …

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy

Marquette Law Review

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

The Rule Of Three, Patrick Barry

Articles

Judges use the Rule of Three. Practitioners use the Rule of Three. And so do all manner of legal academics. Yet although many people seem to have an intuitive feel for how useful this rhetorical move is, no extended explanation of its mechanics and variety of forms exists. This essay offers that explanation. It begins with an introduction to the more straightforward form of the rule of three, which simply involves arranging information not in twos or fours or any other set of numbers-but rather in the trusty, melodic structure of threes. It then moves on to a closer look …

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

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.