Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Reflecting On The Virtual Child Porn Decision, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

An essay on Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the so-called virtual child pornography case.

The Courts’ Inconsistent Treatment Of Bethel V. Fraser And The Curtailment Of Student Rights, David L. Hudson Jr., John E. Ferguson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

The majority of courts have cited Bethel v. Fraser in such a way as to give public school officials free reign to censor vulgar, lewd, or plainly offensive student speech. Some courts have gone a step further and prohibited student speech that contains offensive ideas. This article seeks to explain how the Fraser decision curtailed student rights recognized in the Supreme Court's last pure student speech case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.

Fear Of Violence In Our Schools: Is ‘Undifferentiated Fear’ In The Age Of Columbine Leading To A Suppression Of Student Speech?, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

An essay on the suppression of student speech in the age of mass school shootings.

Three Governors: Herman Talmadge, The Georgia Supreme Court And The Gubernatorial Election Of 1946, Lucian E. Dervan

Law Faculty Scholarship

Herman Talmadge, who died March 21, 2002, was a governor, senator, and Georgia icon who controlled state politics for much of the last half of the 20th century. While many events in Talmadge’s life deserve attention, one event in particular stands out amongst the trials and tribulations, victories and scandals in this long American political life. In 1946, the Georgia gubernatorial election brought a state government to its knees, a state Supreme Court to the height of its power and Talmadge into the national spotlight as a revolver toting aspiring governor.

Travaux Preparatoires And United Nations Treaties Or Conventions: Using The Web Wisely, Marylin J. Raisch

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While it is possible to find individual recent documentation relating to the drafting of treaties by searching the Internet via the popular search engines, the results may not always be as comprehensive as the conscientious legal practitioner or scholar might wish. And what of the less well-known multilateral conventions? Alas, it is not only the obscure or bilateral treaties that can be hard to interpret or locate. Travaux for larger conventions may be a challenge as well. An ounce of caution and a larger dose of background knowledge can save the generalist and the specialist librarian, respectively, from the pitfalls …

A Voice Of Reason: The Products Liability Scholarship Of Gary T. Schwartz, Joseph A. Page

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Of my many fond personal memories of Gary Schwartz, the one that stands out most vividly summons from the mists of time an evening in June 1983 at Boston's Fenway Park. It was my last visit to a childhood haunt where I had seen my first professional baseball game in 1941, an occasion that marked the beginning of a lifelong passion for the national pastime. Settled into an excellent seat that faced the storied left-field wall (and brought to mind visions of the large advertisements that covered its surface before it became known as the "Green Monster”,), I began to …

The Inside Scoop: What Federal Judges Really Think About The Way Lawyers Write, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A recent survey indicates that what troubles federal judges most is not what lawyers say but what they fail to say when writing briefs. Although lawyers do a good job articulating legal issues and citing controlling, relevant legal authority, they are not doing enough with the law itself. Only fifty-six percent of the judges surveyed said that lawyers “always” or “usually” make their client’s best arguments. Fifty-eight percent of the judges rated the quality of the legal analysis as just “good,” as opposed to “excellent” or “very good.” The problem seems to be that briefs lack rigorous analysis, and the …

Citation And Representation, Alex Glashausser

Vanderbilt Law Review

A war is raging in the legal citation field. Arbitrary changes in the Bluebook from one edition to the next have incited a populist rebellion in the form of the Association of Legal Writing Directors' ALWD Citation Manual. This Article traces the causes of the conflict and assesses its likely outcomes. Professor Glashausser compares the two citation guides to eighteenth- century Great Britain and America: the Bluebook is the elite empire clinging to its position, and the Manual is the challenger hoping to ride a wave of populism to revolution. Overall, Professor Glashausser's Article sides with the Manual as the …

Do Best Practices In Legal Education Include Emphasis On Compositional Modes Of Studying Law As A Liberal Art?, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Reporter's Notes on "A Liberal Education in Law: Engaging the Legal Imagination through Research and Writing Beyond the Curriculum."

Feminist Legal Writing, Kathryn M. Stanchi

Scholarly Works

To lay the groundwork for the exploration of feminist legal writing, this Article first summarizes the traditions and conventions of persuasion and persuasive writing-how they are characterized in law and how they are taught in law school. It then summarizes a type of language in linguistic theory called "antilanguage," which is language created by groups in society that are outcasts or otherwise excluded from the dominant social class to rebel against the dominant class. Analyzing several pieces of feminist legal scholarship that use unconventional writing techniques, this Article identifies a type of feminist legal antilanguage. This feminist legal antilanguage uses …

Book Review. Teaching Legal Research And Providing Access To Electronic Resources (Gary L. Hill, Et. Al., Eds.), Peter A. Hook

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Rhetorics Of Legal Authority Constructing Authoritativeness, The “Ellen Effect,” And The Example Of Sodomy Law., Kris Franklin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.

Using A Civil Procedure Exam Question To Teach Persuasion, Sophie M. Sparrow

Law Faculty Scholarship

Studies show that learners master new material more effectively when it builds upon what they already know. By revisiting assignments from a previous semester, students can focus their efforts on persuading, rather than learning new doctrine or facts. Turning a predictive discussion into a persuasive argument demonstrates that making an argument requires the same rigorous thinking as predicting a result. One way to do this is to assign students to write an argument based on their fall Civil Procedure exam.

Inside The Black Box: Comment On Diamond And Vidmar, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

It is an honor to be invited to comment on the first publication of the Arizona Jury Project, a study of Arizona juries that includes videotaping and analysis of jury room discussions and deliberations. It is a remarkable and unique project, made possible by an unusual confluence of people, places, and events. In an insightful opinion some years ago, United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis observed that "[i]t is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments …

Introduction To "Books", Margaret A. Leary

Articles

It's well known that graduate William B. Cook's generosity provided the Law School with its trademark Gothic Law Quadrangle. It is less universally known that Cook endowed the Law School with a trust to support faculty research, and had a strong interest in the nature of that research. He chose to call the library building "Legal Research" and to inscribe above the main entrance "Learned and cultured lawyers are safeguards of the republic." Cook often said that the lack of "intellectual leadership 1s the greatest problem which faces America," and he wanted this Law School to provide that missing leadership. …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.

Play It Again, Sam: Repetition-Part Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Repetition plays a key role in legal writing. The September "Scrivener" addressed using repetition to ensure accuracy, to build emphasis, and to connect ideas. This article focuses on using repetition to make readers comfortable with the writer's use of authorities and to alert them to key wording. In addition, the article explores balancing the use of repetition to avoid making readers bored or irritated.

Spaceball (Or, Not Everything That's Left Is Postmodern), Dennis W. Arrow

Vanderbilt Law Review

Given law-school postmodernism's epistemo/ontology of juvenile antirealist agnosticism, its commitment to Gadamerian and/or Derridean notions of linguistic indeterminacy, its mono- maniacal dedication to centrifugal end-justifies-the-means Lefty politics, its abhorrence of commonly recognized conceptions of neutral principle, its concomitant disrespect for the very notion of truth, and its inextricably intertwined obsession with names and propensity for linguistic doublespeak, Professor Arrow confesses to initially wondering what it might "mean" to take anything uttered by a postmodernist "literally," or at "face value." But undaunted by that 'paradox," Professor Arrow not only takes up Feldman's challenge to "critique postmodernism on its own terms" (by …

An Arrow To The Heart: The Love And Death Of Postmodern Legal Scholarship, Stephen M. Feldman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Modernist legal writers, including Dennis Arrow in his well-known Pomobabble article, commonly criticize postmodern legal scholars for being muddle-headed nihilistic thinkers who write indecipherable jargon-filled nonsense and lack political convictions. Professor Feldman responds to these and other related criticisms and, in doing so, explains some key components of postmodernism. For instance, he describes how the pervasiveness of postmodern culture infuses legal scholarship with certain postmodern themes. Ironically, then, even the most vehement critics, like Arrow, display a surprising if unwitting affinity for postmodernism. Finally, in order to deflect precipitate denunciations of postmodernism, Professor Feldman suggests a refinement of terms, dividing …

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.

The Quest For Scholarship: The Legal Writing Professor's Paradox, Susan P. Liemer

Publications

This article explores the many institutionalized obstacles placed in the paths of the legal academy's experts on legal writing when they themselves attempt to write.

Classical Citation, David S. Coale

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

Aristotle's classical rules for effective advocacy use the framework of logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos is the persuasive force of the reasoning and facts, ethos is the personal credibility of the advocate, and pathos is the emotional appeal of the argument. Citations usually focus on logos and overlook ethos and pathos.

Writing A Better Brief: The Civil Appeals Style Manual Of The Office Of The Maryland Attorney General, Andrew H. Baida

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

The office of the Attorney General of Maryland conducts the Civil Appellate Brief Writing Program in order to improve the level of written appellate advocacy of its attorneys. The program centers on the Office's Civil Appeals Style Manual. The Manual's principles have improved the office's appellate brief writing.

The Argument Of An Appeal, John W. Davis

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

John W. Davis candidly offers ten pieces of advice for oral appellate advocacy.

Listening To John W. Davis, D. P. Marshall Jr.

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

From the Library is a new section in The Journal that will reprint the best that has been written about appellate practice and the appellate process. The first piece features timeless advice about oral argument by John W. Davis. Davis was a country lawyer, law teacher, state legislator and congressman, Solicitor General of the United States, Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Democratic candidate for President in 1924, and managing partner of a New York City law firm.

Recent Books, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A list of books recenlty received by Michigan Law Review.

Law Reviews And Their Relevance To Modern Legal Problems, Thomas L. Fowler

Campbell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Business Lawyer, Woman Warrior: An Allegory Of Feminine And Masculine Theories, Barbara Ann White

All Faculty Scholarship

The first part of this essay is a discourse on how two of the last half century’s most influential contributions to legal thinking: Law and Economics Jurisprudence and Feminist Legal Theory, whose adherents are normally adversaries, can function synergistically to create a greater analytic power. Using business law issues as an example - historically law and economics’ terrain but recently explored by feminism - I comment on how each can unravel different knots but each standing alone leave other conundrums unresolved.

Expanding on the feminist concept of “masculine thinking,” I discuss how, just as law and economics’ analytic style (i.e., …

Play It Again, Sam: Repetition-Part I, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Repetition is part of learning. Advertising specialists do not expect their message to stick with consumers until the ad has aired at least three times. Yet, too much repetition can be both distracting and irritating. This column, and Part II, which will appear in the November 2001 issue, will address the role of repetition in legal writing.