Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

The Case Of The Disappearing Briefs: A Study In Preservation Strategy, Margaret A. Leary

Articles

Federal appellate court records and briefs are significant to researchers in many disciplines, but academic law libraries are discarding them. Ms. Leary chronicles the demise of paper holdings in law libraries, the rise of microforms, and the contents and usage of the National Archives and Records Administration's files. She then derives principles for preservation strategies that may apply to other categories of legal material.

Book Review, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Advocacy And Scholarship, Paul F. Campos

Publications

The apex of American legal thought is embodied in two types of writings: the federal appellate opinion and the law review article. In this Article, the author criticizes the whole enterprise of doctrinal constitutional law scholarship, using a recent U.S. Supreme Court case and a Harvard Law Review article as quintessential examples of the dominant genre. In a rhetorical tour de force, the author argues that most of modern constitutional scholarship is really advocacy in the guise of scholarship. Such an approach to legal scholarship may have some merit as a strategic move towards a political end; however, it has …

"Mastering The Lawless Science Of Our Law": A Story Of Legal Citation Indexes, Patti J. Ogden

Journal Articles

Ms. Ogden presents a history of American legal citation indexes, covering early nineteenth-century attempts, the development of modern citator systems by Frank Shepard and others, online citation systems, and the potential for future improvements in an essential tool of legal research.

Exposure To Tobacco Smoke Is More Than Offensive, It Is Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

In McKinney v. Anderson, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that compelled exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) may constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits, however, have reached the opposite conclusion. The Supreme Court should affirm the Ninth Circuit's ruling in McKinney for two reasons. First, the medical evidence introduced since the Ninth Circuit decided McKinney confirms that court's belief "that the attitude of our society has evolved at least to a point that it violates current standards of decency to expose unwilling prisoners to ETS levels that pose an unreasonable risk of harm …

Native American Restricted Allotments: A Surviving Spouse's Elective Share Rights, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Nearly all states have laws that prohibit decedents from disinheriting their spouses. In these states, if a surviving spouse is disinherited, the spouse may renounce the will and elect to take a certain percentage of the decedent's estate. In Oklahoma and Nebraska, for instance, a surviving spouse may elect to take one-half of the decedent's estate in lieu of the devises, if any, made for the surviving spouse in the will. These "elective share" statutes afford long-term financial security for surviving spouses. A century ago, Native Americans acquired real estate by allotment. Under the allotment system, the federal government issued …

Targeted, Direct-Mail Solicitation: Shapero V. Kentucky Bar Association Under Attack, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Attorneys have been reluctant to take part in advertising and solicitation since the United States Supreme Court specifically allowed their use sixteen years ago. Of those attorneys who have advertised or solicited, most have used the traditional forms of advertising such as television, radio, and print media. Attorneys have been particularly averse to direct-mail solicitation, which may be the most effective form of advertisement. Prior to 1988, the scarcity of attorney solicitation could be explained by the unsettled nature of the governing law. In that year, however, the Supreme Court finally clarified the law regarding targeted, direct mail solicitation by …

The Proper Location Of Party-Depositions Under The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide numerous mechanisms for noticing and conducting party-depositions, but they are silent about location. Determining the proper location of party-depositions requires a foray into a confusing, and sometimes inconsistent, line of case law. For instance, some courts hold that the proper location to depose a corporate representative is the judicial district in which the corporation maintains its principal place of business, while others suggest that it is the district in which the suit is pending. This Article clarifies the law concerning the proper location of party-depositions and proposes a hard-and-fast rule for determining the appropriate …

The Supreme Court's Narrow View On Civil Rights, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

The right to choose abortion, although recently significantly curtailed from its original scope,' is a federally protected liberty interest of women, and is at least protected against the imposition of "undue burdens" by state and local government.² Some of the most serious threats to women's ability to choose abortion have come not from government regulation, but from private, national, organized efforts to prevent abortions. In addition to seeking change through the political system, some of these organizations, most notably Operation Rescue, have focused on the providers of abortion, and have attempted to prevent abortions by forcibly closing abortion clinics …

Preface: Academic Freedom And Legal Education, J. Peter Byrne

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Preface to a collection of papers delivered at a conference on Academic Freedom and Legal Education, held at the Tulane University School of Law on April 3 and 4,1992. Speaking or writing about academic freedom propels one from current controversies toward implicit or explicit propositions about the nature and goals of legal education.

Corrective Justice For Moderns, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Once when I was reading a Soviet commentary on criminal procedure, a friend noticed the cyrillic title and asked whether the Russian book was fiction or nonfiction. My initial tendency was to give the straight response, "Nonfiction, of course," but then I thought about what I was reading and began to laugh. Now if someone asked me whether Jules Coleman's Risks and Wrongs was fiction or nonfiction, I would want to give the straight reply. Thinking about the book, however, I hesitate. And I do not laugh.

It is becoming more and more difficult these days to distinguish fiction from …

Editing, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

In May 1993, I published a book review of Richard Posner's Sex and Reason. The review was modest in length and in purpose, part of an informal division of labor undertaken by the many critics of Sex and Reason. It challenged Judge Posner's claim that an economic analysis of sex was something new and argued that women have been making rational choices with regard to sex and reproduction for quite a long time, something that Judge Posner's book seemed to miss and misunderstand throughout.

Readers of the review (the members of my MCI Friends and Family Plan) have …

The Mind In The Major American Law School, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholarship is significantly, even qualitatively, different from what it was some two or three decades ago. As with any major change in intellectual thought, this one is composed of several strands. The inclusion in the legal academic community of women and minorities has produced, not surprisingly, a distinctive and at times quite critical body of thought and writing. The emergence of the school of thought known as critical legal studies has renewed and extended the legal realist critique of law of the first half of the century. But more than anything else it is the interdisciplinary movement in legal …

Table Of Contents

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Teachers' Writing, James Boyd White

Michigan Law Review

Judge Edwards divides scholarship into the theoretical and the practical, and, while conceding the place and value of both, argues that there is today too much of the former, too little of the latter. The result, he says, is an increasing and unfortunate divide between the life of law practice and the writing of law teachers. One can understand his complaint readily enough, especially coming as it does from an overworked judge. I myself have had perceptions and feelings somewhat like those that seem to animate Judge Edwards, though I would express them differently: for me the relevant line is …

The Poverty Of Academic Rhetoric, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rhetorical Resonance And Constitutional Vision, W. Cole Durham Jr.

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Code Of The Moral, Niklas Luhmann

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

New York State Constitutional Decisions: 1993 Compilation

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gender Neutral Ii, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Continuation of article above including discussions of personal pronouns, use of "they," and sex-neutral terms.

Gender Neutral, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Regardless of your preference, you should be aware that the use of "he" as a universal gender pronoun now is controversial, and your reader probably will follow only one of two very divergent ideologies. Therefore, fall back on a primary rule of persuasive writing: avoid any words or structures that alienate your rader or distract from your message.

Procrastination, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Panic has set in. The deadline for your brief or memo is now measured in hours rather than days. You think, “Maybe the adrenaline will make me more efficient, but if only I had started earlier!” If you often or occasionally find yourself in this predicament, here are three suggestions to help you avoid it in the future.

University Of Florida Introduces New Electronic Reference Room, Rosalie M. Sanderson, Betty W. Taylor

UF Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Law Review Usage And Suggestions For Improvement: A Survey Of Attorneys, Professors, And Judges, Max Stier, Kelly M. Klaus, Dan L. Bagatell, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We do not need to worry about the consumers of law reviews because they really do not exist. A few professors who author texts must read some of the articles, but most volumes are purchased to decorate law school library shelves. The only purchasers of law reviews outside of academe are law firms which gladly pay for the volumes even though no one reads them.

Personal Narratives And Racial Distinctiveness In The Legal Academy, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

A small group of legal academicians is embroiled in yet another debate that, to the uninitiated at least, appears to have little or nothing to do with "the law." ¹ This time the issue is the ideology of legal writing style-that is, does a growing, unique body of legal scholarship that draws on the personal experiences of minority faculty and, arguably, reflects the racial oppression these scholars have suffered, produce "distinct normative insights?" ² Professor Patricia Williams of the University of Wisconsin clearly believes that it does.

In her new book, The Alchemy of Race and Rights,³ which is …

Be Plain, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

You are pondering which word to use in a brief. Which should you sue—“supra,” “aforementioned” or “above”? Be cautious of Latin and archaic English words. If you use them, your argument, as well as your reputation may be placed at risk.

Oh No! A New Bluebook!, James D. Gordon Iii

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation

Legal Research In A Social Science Setting: The Problem Of Method, T Brettel Dawson

Dalhousie Law Journal

As part of its ongoing process of curriculum development, the Department of Law at Carleton University decided in 1988 that a compulsory course in legal research methods was long overdue in the B.A. Honours degree in Law. Fortified with interest nurtured by methodological debates in feminist scholarship,' experience devilling' for a barrister pending my call to the bar, and practice from instructing a course in legal research and writing while a graduate student, I set about developing the proposed course. No guidelines existed for such a course, beyond the logic that it should complement the socio-legal or legal studies focus …