Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Legal Writing, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, And Professionalism, Shelley Kierstead

Articles & Book Chapters

“Professionalism as a personal characteristic is revealed in an attitude and approach to an occupation that is commonly characterized by intelligence, integrity, maturity, and thoughtfulness.”

“Words are the principal tool of lawyers and judges, whether we like it or not.”

The quotes above refer to two quintessential aspects of lawyers’ work. First, as members of a self-regulated profession, we must aspire to a level of professionalism that is characterized by intelligence, maturity, and thoughtfulness. Second, regardless of the tasks we undertake, words are critically important to lawyers. Not only must we be able to conduct comprehensive and coherent legal analysis; …

Meeting The Challenges Of Instructing International Law Graduate Students In Legal Research, Nina E. Scholtz, Femi Cadmus

Faculty Scholarship

Teaching international LL.M. students legal research offers its own peculiar challenges. The brevity of the LL.M. program and the limited time available for thoroughly introducing basic research concepts have made it particularly difficult, but the innovative and creative methods of instruction highlighted in this article have provided good solutions.

Legal Writing: A History From The Colonial Era To The End Of The Civil War, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Many Texts Of The Law, Michael Davis, Dana Neacsu

Law Faculty Publications

This paper contends that even as jurists invoke the official canonic version of the legal text, it is in danger of being replaced for the jurist, as well as for the lay person, if it has not been substituted already, by some apocryphal, inauthentic or casual text. We argue that in addition to the approximate nature of legal knowledge, the overuse of overedited and perverted casebooks, as well as the distribution of legal information among imperfect sources – some official but partial, others inauthentic but highly accessible, and a few reliable but highly unaffordable commercial sources – are largely responsible …

Mexican Law And Legal Research, Julienne Grant, Jonathan Pratter, Bianca Anderson, Marisol Floren-Romero, Jootaek Lee, Lyonette Louis-Jacques, Teresa Miguel-Stearns, Sergio Stone

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

To Abbreviate Or Not To Abbreviate: A Perspective On Administrative Agency Bluebook Citations, Taryn L. Rucinski

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

For students and practitioners, one of the most confusing issues posed today by The Bluebook lies in when and how to abbreviate federal and state administrative agency names. Or to put it another way: Do I use: EPA, E.P.A., Envtl. Protection Agency, or U.S. Envtl. Protection Agency?

The Trouble With Categories: What Theory Can Teach Us About The Doctrine-Skills Divide, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

We might not need another article decrying the doctrine/skills dichotomy. That conversation seems increasingly old and tired. But like it or not, in conversations about the urgent need to reform legal education, the dichotomy’s entailments confront us at every turn. Is there something more to be said? Perhaps surprisingly, yes. We teach our students to examine language carefully, to question received categories, and to understand legal questions in light of their history and theory. Yet when we talk about the doctrine/skills divide, we seem to forget our own instruction.

This article does not exactly take sides in the typical skills …

Toward A Jurisprudence Of The Civil Rights Acts, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

What is the nature of the “rights,” jurisprudentially, that the 1964 Civil Rights Act legally prescribed? And, more generally, what is a “civil right”? Today, lawyers tend to think of civil rights and particularly those that originated in the 1964 Act, as antidiscrimination rights: our “civil rights,” on this understanding, are our rights not to be discriminated against, by employers, schools, landlords, property vendors, hoteliers, restaurant owners, and providers of public transportation, no less than by states and state actors, on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality or disability. Contemporary civil rights scholarship overwhelmingly reflects the same conception: …

The Accidental Archivists: Lessons Learned From A Digital Archive Project, Robert Linz, Karen Selden, Georgia Briscoe

Publications

This article tells the story of the University of Colorado Law Library’s successful effort to develop its first digital archive. The sudden death of the Law School’s Dean was the catalyst for this project, with a goal to unveil the archive at a memorial symposium scheduled nine months in the future. The Law Library staff had never tackled a project of this type or scale before. This article discusses the technological, cataloging and management issues which were encountered during the project. It also provides advice and tips on how librarians in their own institutions can accomplish such a project.

The 4-1-1 On Lawyer Directories, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Directories listing biographical and contact information for attorneys have been a publishing mainstay for more than one hundred years. They are used for marketing, as well as historical and genealogical research. However, technology is changing the way attorneys advertise, and Ms. Whisner looks at the current state of lawyer directories and their usage.

Getting To Know Fastcase, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Librarians must learn how to use databases on a regular basis. The databases may be new, or they may be well-established ones that librarians haven’t used before. Ms. Whisner examines Fastcase, an online system that recently entered into a cooperative agreement with HeinOnline, and discovers some lessons about how she learns new databases.

The Changing Discourse Of The Supreme Court, Stephen M. Johnson

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Academics, judges, and other commentators complain that, for the past few decades, the Justices on the Supreme Court have been increasingly writing opinions that are unreadable for most American citizens. Those critics complain that the opinions are too long and too complex, riddled with incomprehensible multi-part tests. They also attack the style of the opinions and assert that recent opinions are more likely to be written in a technocratic, rather than persuasive, style.

There seems to be little consensus among the critics regarding why the Justices are writing opinions that are increasingly unreadable. Some attribute it to the increasing …

A Writing Revolution: Using Legal Writing's 'Hobble' To Solve Legal Education's Problem, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The attached article responds to a 2011 article by John Lynch, published in the Journal of Legal Education, that urged legal writing faculty to return to an outmoded and ineffective writing pedagogy, the “product approach,” on the grounds that it would make teaching legal writing easier. This article builds on the work of Carol McCrehan Parker and others interested in writing across the curriculum and argues that the only way to reduce legal writing’s “hobble” and to solve legal education’s problem is to create a six-semester writing requirement. The reason law students are graduating without adequate preparation for practice is …

Scholarly Incentives, Scholarship, Article Selection Bias, And Investment Strategies For Today's Law Schools, Dan Subotnik, Laura Ross

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Scholarship In Law Schools, Fabio Arcila Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Converting Benchslaps To Backslaps: Instilling Professional Accountability In New Legal Writers By Teaching And Reinforcing Context, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

A search in published and unpublished court decisions for derivations of phrases like "poorly written brief" or "failure to follow court rules" yields an alarming multitude of case opinions in which judges admonish lawyers of all levels of experience for shoddy briefs or for flouting non-negotiable substantive and procedural rules. Legal bloggers have affectionately dubbed these public reprimands "benchslaps."

Section I of this article provides a contextual background that professors and practitioners can share with rookie legal writers, using judicial opinions to demonstrate the eight most-common ways that attorney work product falls short of judges' expectations and, more importantly, how …

"The Evolution Of Government Documents", Jennifer Morgan

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Law Librarianship in the 21st Century, a text for library and information science courses on law librarianship, introduces students to the rapidly evolving world of law librarianship. With no prior knowledge of the law required, students using this book will find practical answers to such questions as: What is law librarianship? How do you become a law librarian? How does law librarianship interrelate with the legal world? Individual chapters provide a concise treatment of such specialized topics as the history of law librarianship, international law, and government documents. Standard topics are dealt with as they apply to the law library, …

Speaking With Conviction: The Importance Of Effective And Precise Communications, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Maryland Practice Materials: A Selective Annotated Bibliography, Adeen Postar, Khelani Clay

Contributions to Books

This chapter is intended to cover Maryland Law in its entire complexity and for the most part is intended for current use by practitioners. Whenever possible, it includes references to online sources of material, including LexisNexis, Westlaw, and authoritative sites available on the Internet. We have not included references to WestlawNext as many Maryland specific materials have not been included there as this project was concluding in November 2011.

Reading John Noonan, Jospeh Vining

Articles

John Noonan is a giant in American law and legal practice -- a distinguished legal historian and a true judge. His reflections on the nature of law have a special importance. This essay is a comment on basic elements in his thought.

Research And The Professional : Navigating A Spectrum Of Legal Resources., Erin K Gow

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Legal research is complicated by the growing amount of information available, and there is evidence that legal practitioners require additional training in order to enhance their information literacy and legal research skills. Librarians have a key role to play in developing legal research training, and examples taken from Middle Temple's library are used to illustrate ways in which librarians can offer beneficial training to their library users. This involves assessing the skills, motivation, and needs of the average library user in order to design legal research training that is educationally sound and appealing to the target audience.

Supporting And Promoting Scholarly Life In Turbulent Times, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

One of the most important contributions a law school can make is to the development of the law through scholarly research. As one of the three pillars of being an academic-the other two being teaching and service-producing legal scholarship in one's respective area of expertise is an enterprise that nearly all law schools would like to support. However, during these challenging times for legal education arising from enrollment declines and the resultant adverse budgetary impacts, fully supporting legal scholarship can be particularly challenging. Having served as Associate Dean for Research I at Washington & Lee University School of Law ("W …

Congratulations To The 2014 Recipients Of The Oakley Advocacy And Pagi Awards!, Susan Nevelow Mart

Publications

No abstract provided.

Uelma - Another First For Colorado, Susan Nevelow Mart

Publications

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Justice Gap: Exploring Approaches For Improving Indigent Access To Civil Counsel, Kelsey Atkinson

Pomona Senior Theses

The United States is among one of the only democratic industrialized nations in the world that does not provide guaranteed access to civil representation in cases involving basic human need. This leaves indigent litigants who are at risk of losing their homes or their children left to seek counsel through insufficient pro-bono programs or limited scope legal self-help centers. This thesis provides a history of the struggle for the right to civil counsel, known as Civil Gideon, and explores a variety of proposed solutions to bridge the justice gap for indigent litigants. Despite considerable support for Civil Gideon among scholars …

Accessing Law: An Empirical Study Exploring The Influence Of Legal Research Medium, Stefan H. Krieger, Katrina F. Kuh

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The legal profession is presently engaged in an uncontrolled experiment. Attorneys now locate and access legal authorities primarily through electronic means. Although this shift to an electronic research medium radically changes how attorneys discover and encounter law, little empirical work investigates impacts from the shift to an electronic medium.

This Article presents the results of one of the most robust empirical studies conducted to date comparing research processes using print and electronic sources. While the study presented in this Article was modest in scope, the extent and type of the differences that it reveals are notable. Some of the observed …

Proceed With Extreme Caution: Citation To Wikipedia In Light Of Contributor Demographics And Content Policies, Jodi L. Wilson

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Courts and advocates have shown an increasing willingness to cite to Wikipedia. This trend has piqued the attention of scholars, who have considered the permanency concerns raised by citations to Wikipedia and critiqued how courts and advocates have used Wikipedia. This Article adds to the growing scholarship on the Wikipedia citation trend by examining the contours of the Wikipedia contributor crowd and the principles underlying Wikipedia's content in order to better inform the evaluation of Wikipedia as a potential authoritative source. Part I provides an overview of the Wikipedia citation trend in cases and federal appellate briefs. Part II describes …

Encouraging Engaged Scholarship: Perspectives From An Associate Dean For Research, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Taking Images Seriously, Elizabeth G. Porter

Articles

Law has been trapped in a stylistic straitjacket. The Internet has revolutionized media and communications, replacing text with a dizzying array of multimedia graphics and images. Facebook hosts 150 billion photos. Courts spend millions on trial technology. But those innovations have barely trickled into the black-and-white world of written law. Legal treatises continue to evoke Blackstone and Kent; most legal casebooks are facsimiles of Langdell’s; and legal journals resemble the Harvard Law Review circa 1887. None of these influential forms of disseminating the law has embraced — or even nodded to — modern, image-saturated communication norms. Litigants, scholars and courts …

Beyond Contrastive Rhetoric: Helping International Lawyers Use Cohesive Devices In U.S. Legal Writing, Elizabeth R. Baldwin

Articles

This Article attempts to use linguistics, specifically text analysis and pragmatics, to help explain how and why lawyers who are non-native speakers of English (NNS) struggle with cohesion in their U.S. legal writing. Then in light of that discussion, it offers a four-step, receptive and productive exercise to engage students in contrastive analysis of cohesive features across languages and cultures.

It begins by distinguishing coherence (top-down flow related to rhetorical preferences and organization of content and argument) from cohesion (bottom-up flow related to the surface features that exhibit connections between clauses). As background, it explores the role of cohesion in …