Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

“Beholder” Reflections—Part Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This column is the second in a series analyzing feedback from readers about what they believe is good legal writing. In the January 2006 Scrivener, I provided a survey containing writing samples for three parts of an objective legal analysis. The survey questions asked readers to indicate which samples they preferred and why, and to comment on specific devices used in the samples.

How To Make The Losing Oral Argument, Coleen M. Barger

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Transsystemia–Are We Approaching A New Langdellian Moment? Is Mcgill Leading The Way?, Peter L. Strauss

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Economic Analysis Of Law And Economics, Oren Gazal-Ayal

ExpressO

The academic world is wonderful. Like few other professionals, we can choose what we want to do and what questions we think are important, which in our line of work means choosing what topics we want to research. But what influences our choices? This paper examines what drives scholars to select Law and Economics (L&E) as a topic for research. It does so by implementing the methodology of many L&E papers – by assuming that regulation and incentives matter.

Legal scholars face very different academic incentives in different parts of the world. In some countries, the academic standards for appointment, …

“Beholder” Reflections—Part I, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In the January 2006 Scrivener, I sought advice from my readers: Is the perception of what constitutes good legal writing in the eye of the beholder? By measuring reader reflections of the samples I posted in a survey online, I am attempting to answer this question.

Index Of Books Reviewed, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A listing of books reviewed in this issue.

From The Treasurer: Another Positive Year For Aall., Joyce Manna Janto

Law Faculty Publications

This article reports on the fiscal health of the American Association of Law Libraries in 2006, including statements of assets and activities.

Teaching Legal Research And Writing With Actual Legal Work: Extending Clinical Education Into The First Year, Michael A. Millemann, Steven D. Schwinn

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, the co-authors argue that legal research and writing (LRW) teachers should use actual legal work to generate assignments. They recommend that clinical and LRW teachers work together to design, co-teach, and evaluate such courses. They describe two experimental courses they developed together and co-taught to support and clarify their arguments. They contend that actual legal work motivates students to learn the basic skills of research, analysis and writing, and thus helps to accomplish the primary goals of LRW courses. It also helps students to explore new dimensions of basic skills, including those related to the development and …

The Constitution As Idea: Defining Describing Deciding In Kelo, Marc L. Roark

ExpressO

In June 2005, the Supreme Court in a Five to Four Decision marked its most controversial decision in recent memory. The case of Kelo v. City of New London, set off a fire storm of response to the Court’s ruling that economic development takings satisfied the Fifth Amendment. This essay is about Kelo. It is about how the Court uses words, how the defining ability of words create institutional space in which the Court operates, and which defines things beyond the words.

Aall History Through The Eyes Of Its Presidents, Frank G. Houdek

Publications

On the occasion of the celebration of AALL's centennial in 2006, Professor Houdek offers a personalized history of the Association by presenting reminiscences of those who have served as its president. Collectively, these stories contribute a unique perspective on the important issues that have confronted AALL as an organization and law librarianship as a profession. They also help explain how these individuals became AALL leaders and what the experience meant to them.

On Letters Of Reference As Frames Of Reference, Roderick A. Macdonald, Alexandra Law

Dalhousie Law Journal

Requesting, writing and reading letters of reference are everyday features of academic life. Yet they are neglected as a matter of professorial training and their pedagogical importance is rarely acknowledged. This paper reviews various practical aspects of the reference process, with emphasis on its politics and ethics. It argues that letters of reference frame the lived experience of candidate, writer, reader and community-both for the present and the future.

Caveat Blogger: Blogging And The Flight From Scholarship, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

These comments were delivered to the “Symposium on Bloggership” held at Harvard Law School on April 28, 2006. Professor Randy Barnett discusses the pros and cons of blogging by legal scholars.

Maccrate (In)Action: The Case For Enhancing The Upper-Level Writing Requirement In Law Schools, Kenneth D. Chestek

ExpressO

In 2001, the American Bar Association amended the Standards for Accreditation of Law Schools to require, for the first time, a “rigorous writing experience after the first year.” During the summer of 2004 the author conducted a nationwide survey to determine how law schools responded to this change. The author found that most schools did little more than to require students to take at least one course which was evaluated by means of an academic paper rather than an examination. The author concludes that this is probably not the response the ABA had hoped for, but suggests that a 2005 …

Scholarship Buddies, Melissa Marlow

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

A Short Note On The Placement Of Adverbs, Jonathan R. Siegel

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Joint Ventures Under Article 81 Of Eu Treaty, Rahul Goel

ExpressO

The paper discusses Article 81 of EU treaty, which focuses on the analysis of the competitive behavior of a joint venture participant in co-operative non-full-function joint venture with focus on telecommunications sector. The Article 81 analyses the joint ventures that fail to satisfy the threshold of the European Commission’s Merger Regulation (ECMR) due to the factors that either they are not fully-functional in nature or lack a community dimension.

Google And Beyond: Finding Information Using Search Engines, And Evaluating Your Results, Elizabeth Geesey Holmes

Presentations

Searching the World Wide Web can be a daunting task. The Web has expanded at such a rapid pace that nobody knows exactly how large it is, but it is safe to say that there are many billions of Web pages residing on servers all over the world. Add to this scenario the task of evaluating information found on the web and choosing between the hundreds of different search tools available – including directories, search engines, meta-searchers, and specialized search engines – and the situation begins to feel overwhelming. Fortunately, learning a few essential concepts of Web searching and site …

Reviewing Writing Samples, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The ability to write well is a critical skill for attorneys, but few law practices have the resources to provide on-the-job help for struggling writers. Consequently, many law firms use writing samples as a way to screen applicants. Every year, the Office of Career Services at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law asks me to give a workshop from the applicant perspective. Although I cover a bit more in the workshop, overall my advice to students about writing samples is pretty straightforvard.

Analyze This: Using Taxonomies To "Scaffold" Students' Legal Thinking And Writing Skills, Christine M. Venter

Mercer Law Review

Legal Writing

Many legal writing teachers speak glibly about training their students to think like lawyers, but have not necessarily tailored their pedagogy to meet that goal. If teachers are not clear and explicit in how they go about teaching students analytical skills, they cannot necessarily expect students to become experts in analysis. While it is true that over the course of their law school careers, most students will develop legal analytical skills through exposure to the law and by means of the Socratic method; teachers can do better. Lawyers pride themselves on precision. This Article argues that legal writing …

Contract As Statute, Stephen J. Choi, G. Mitu Gulati

Michigan Law Review

The traditional model of contract interpretation focuses on the "meeting of the minds." Parties agree on how to structure their respective obligations and rights and then specify their agreement in a written document. Gaps and ambiguities are inevitable. But where contract language exists for the point in contention and a dispute arises as to the meaning of this language, courts attempt to divine what the parties intended. Among the justifications for deferring to the intent of the parties is the assumption that parties know what is best for themselves. Deference also arguably furthers autonomy values. Not all contracts and contract …

Partnering With Decision Makers In Your Institution, Claire M. Germain

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rhetoricized Constitutionality: Describing -- Defining -- Deciding In Kelo, Marc L. Roark

ExpressO

This essay is about how the Court uses words, how the defining ability of words creates institutional space in which the Court operates, and which defines things beyond the words.

Barriers In The Land Of The Free, Gary L. Mcdowell

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

The best way to get judges to write books is apparently to lure them to the lecterns of prominent lecture series, then turn their remarks into something more permanent. Perhaps the most successful of these schemes was Judge Benjamin Cardozo's 1921 Storrs lectures at the Yale Law School that appeared in the same year as The Nature of the Judicial Process . While a judge on the New York Court of Appeals, before he was elevated to the US Supreme Court in 1932, Cardozo saw two further series of lectures appear in print as The Growth of the Law (1924) …

Ria Federal Tax Handbook 2006 (Book Review), Elizabeth Outler

UF Law Faculty Publications

Review and explanation of the features of the RIA Federal Tax Handbook.

Aall's National Advocacy Efforts, Claire M. Germain

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Life's Golden Tree: Empirical Scholarship And American Law, Carl E. Schneider, Lee E. Teitelbaum

Articles

What follows is a simplified introduction to legal argument. It is concerned with the scheme of argument and with certain primary definitions and assumptions commonly used in legal opinions and analysis. This discussion is not exhaustive of all the forms of legal argument nor of the techniques of argument you will see and use this year. It is merely an attempt to introduce some commonly used tools in legal argument. It starts, as do most of your first-year courses, with the techniques of the common-law method and then proceeds to build statutory, regulatory, and constitutional sources of law into the …

The Unwritten Article, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

A law review article without footnotes? Unthinkable. But what about an article with only footnotes - and footnotes to footnotes? Thinkable. And here it is.

Performance Scholarship And The Internal Revenue Code, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

If we can have performance art-and we can-why not performance scholarship? This commentary suggests an entirely new scholarly emphasis for legal academics. (OK, it's not entirely new, but it's new for those of us not teaching trial practice.)

Law Review Correspondence: Better Read Than Dead?, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

These essays were part of a mini-symposium, “Of Correspondence and Commentary,” published by the Connecticut Law Review. At the time, a number of prominent law reviews had begun to publish “correspondence,” shorter pieces generally commenting on work published in the reviews. Whatever they were called, however, these pieces looked an awful lot like articles, complete with footnotes, titles with colons, and other law-review-type stuff. The author used the creation of correspondence sections to ruminate on the nature of legal scholarship, as published in student-edited law reviews, and in particular to wonder whether authors were using correspondence sections as backdoor ways …