Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Even Lawyers Do Not Like Legalese, Eric H. Martinez, Francis Mollica, Edward Gibson

Faculty Scholarship

Significance

Genre Discovery 2.0, Katie Rose Guest Pryal

Barry Law Review

Ten years ago, I proposed the “genre discovery approach” for teaching new legal writers how to write any legal document, even ones they had never encountered before. Using the genre discovery approach, a writer studies samples of a genre to identify the genre’s conventions so that they can write the genre. From the seed of Genre Discovery 1.0, the approach’s potential has blossomed into a robust pedagogical system: Genre Discovery 2.0. Genre Discovery 2.0 is more effective than Genre Discovery 1.0 because it more explicitly integrates metacognition into its pedagogy.

Metacognition, “the concept that individuals can monitor and regulate their …

Polysemy And The Law, Daniel J. Hemel

Vanderbilt Law Review

Polysemy-the existence of multiple related meanings for the same word or phrase-is a frequent phenomenon in legal and lay language. Although polysemy sometimes arises by accident, it also can be strategic: framers of legal rules can advance private and public interests by assigning meanings to terms that are different from-though connected to-the meanings that those terms carry outside the law. Understanding the functions of polysemy can help us design more effective legal rules and can shed light on ways in which legal actors translate language into power.

This Article undertakes a comprehensive analysis of polysemy's origins, uses, and consequences across …

Legal Writing Handbook For Clinical Students, Nan Haynes

Books

This handbook is for upper-level students enrolled in a clinic, who are expected to draft legal memorandums, briefs, client letters, and pleadings with minimal supervision. Each chapter focuses on a single writing skill. The exercises and examples consistently and cogently employ the techniques and devices advocated in the book.

Clinical students learn by doing. Still, their legal writing experience is limited, so guiding them through written assignments is challenging. They simultaneously need specific feedback on legal writing from their professors, and the opportunity to do as much as possible on their own. I wrote this handbook with that challenge in …

Managing Threats To Beaches From Storms And Rising Seas, Travis O. Brandon

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Dialogue, published in the Environmental Law Reporter, examines the escalating threats to U.S. beaches from intensified storms and accelerating sea-level rise driven by climate change. Drawing on a January 2023 panel convened by the Environmental Law Institute, the discussion integrates scientific, legal, policy, and community-based perspectives on sustaining beach and dune ecosystems. Panelists outline projected shoreline retreat, sediment dynamics, and modeling tools used to forecast erosion and coastal flooding. They assess the ecological and socioeconomic tradeoffs associated with shoreline armoring, beach nourishment, and coastal development, highlighting how regulatory frameworks—particularly under the Coastal Zone Management Act and Clean Water …

Keynote Address, Dr. Alex Jahangir

Belmont Health Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel: Rural-Urban Health Responses To Covid-19, Linda Rippey-Moore, Luke Hill, Gabe Roberts, Eric Gray

Belmont Health Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel: Fraud And Abuse, Ellen Mcintyre, Lisa Rivera, Amy Leopard, Tony Hullender

Belmont Health Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Privacy Issues With Healthcare Technology, Professor Charlotte Tschider

Belmont Health Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Dosing Discrimination: Regulating Pdmp Risk Scores, Professor Jennifer Oliva

Belmont Health Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Innovator Liability And Prescription Medication: A Stopgap Measure Patients Deserve, Will True

Belmont Health Law Journal

This Note argues that in the absence of an updated statute and FDA regulation, states should permit plaintiffs to recover under the theory of innovator liability. Despite the theory’s arguable contravention of “traditional common law tort principles” and potentially unfair results against brand-name manufacturers, victims of defective drugs and inadequate warnings should have an avenue for recourse. Forfeiting one’s ability to recover potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages in exchange for paying a cheaper price for medication is not a fair trade. Indeed, the Supreme Court in PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing (discussed in Section II and arguably the …

An Update Is Required To Continue Using This Regulation: Why The Hipaa Privacy Rule Should Be Modified To Protect A Broader Range Of Health Data, Lauren Caverly Pratt

Belmont Health Law Journal

While there is no constitutional right to privacy of information, general public sentiment leans in favor of keeping personal health data private. More precisely, individuals would like information known only to the individual and other parties to whom he or she chooses to disclose the information. This is because public knowledge of sensitive personal data may harm the individual economically, socially, or in other intangible ways. The benefits of public knowledge of such individually identifiable health data do not outweigh these potential harms. Privacy should be the default.

To achieve this, HIPAA must be expanded to protect private health data …

Independent Freestanding Emergency Centers: The Face Of An Alternative Model To Healthcare In Rural America, Alisha Patel

Belmont Health Law Journal

This Note will attempt to provide a background of rural healthcare disparities and the issues facing these regions. This Note will also explore the history of IFECs in the United States to better understand the context of the issues and reasons as to why emergency regulations such as EMTALA do not already extend to IFECs. Part 1 of this Note will examine the origin of IFECs and their role in the healthcare landscape today. Part II will discuss EMTALA and the challenges associated with IFECs during a public health emergency. Lastly, Part III of this Note will highlight the advantages …

Table Of Contents, Masthead, And Dedication, Maribeth Beyer

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Class Of 2021 Alumna Earns National Legal Writing Award, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Morgan York was in her third and final year at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law when she published an article in the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. Two years later, she’s being recognized as one of the country’s top law school writers.

York published “I Just Took a DNA Test—Turns Out, I’m 100% Breaching my Donor Anonymity Contract: Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing and Parental Medical Decision-Making” in 2021. On June 12, she’ll be one of 25 recipients of a “Law360 Distinguished Legal Writing Award” at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The awards are …

Table Of Contents And Masthead, Maribeth Beyer

Pepperdine Law Review

The 2022 Pepperdine Law Review Symposium entitled, A Faster Way Home – Removing Barriers to Increase America’s Housing Supply, brought together scholars from prestigious universities and law schools, law firms, and on-the-ground community members to evaluate the barriers blocking the way to closing the nation’s housing deficit, including local opposition, cost inhibitions, zoning restrictions, and entitlements. They presented original research and findings about how the housing crisis has reached such heights because of zoning law, restrictive uses, and city board decisions. Presenting through panels and speeches, these scholars provided valuable insight into the housing crisis across the country, but especially …

W&L Law Library Newsletter, Vol. 2, Iss. 2 (Apr. 2023), The Law Library At Washington And Lee University School Of Law

W&L Law Library Newsletter

W&L Law Library Newsletter, Volume 2, Issue 2 (April 2023).

Michigan Supreme Court Records And Briefs: New Access To A Historical Resource, Virginia Thomas

Library Scholarly Publications

The author describes a successful 3-year collaboration among publishers, academic law libraries and, of course, the Michigan Supreme Court, that resulted in digitizing Michigan Supreme Court records and briefs from 1850 through 2011 and making these items accessible online.

Just Choices? Judicial Selection, Ideology, And Partisanship In The Ohio Supreme Court, Margo D'Agostino

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

This thesis joins the conversation on judicial selection and impacts on judicial ideology. This is a multifaceted question that engages with the history of judicial selection, differences between states, growing polarization and partisanship, and an influx in campaign spending that can all influence Justices’ behavior while on the bench. While other theorists have used more quantitative or statistical analytics, more research is still needed on the nuanced and qualitative questions surrounding the judiciary in the United States, especially on the state level. I look at three Ohio Supreme Court Justices—Maureen O’Connor, Jennifer Brunner, and Sharon Kennedy—and decisions they have penned …

Strategic Citations: Beyond The Bluebook, David J.S. Ziff

Articles

Lawyers love thinking about writing. We love it so much that this issue of the Litigation and Trial Practice-Staff Council Committee Newsletter is devoted to writing tips. And for good reason. Words are our business, so we want to ensure that we’re using them as effectively as possible.

Often, however, when lawyers discuss writing, we ignore an important part of what we write. Sprinkled throughout our carefully crafted prose, legal writing includes other, uglier sentences—sentences with their own grammar of sorts, those little clumps of italicized case names, the reporter numbers and abbreviations, often with multiple parentheticals at the end. …

Stories From The Negative Spaces: United States V. Thind And The Narrative Of (Non)Whiteness, Joy Kanwar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (April 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Ultimate Bar Passage Rates: Which Law Schools Are Overperforming And Underperforming Expectations, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

n Ultimate Bar Passage Rates: Which Law Schools Are Overperforming and Underperforming Expectations, Professor Jeffrey S. Kinsler examines whether law schools add measurable value to student bar passage outcomes beyond what would be predicted by entering credentials. Using a three-year dataset (2017–2019) for 186 ABA-approved law schools, the study employs linear regression models to assess the relationship between Median LSAT scores, Median undergraduate GPAs, and ultimate bar passage rates—defined by the ABA as passage within two years of graduation. The analysis confirms that entering credentials are predictive of ultimate bar passage outcomes but also demonstrates that some institutions significantly …

Gadamerian Hermeneutics In Practice As A Paradigm For Legal Interpretation And Analysis, Konstantin G. Vertsman

St. Mary's Law Journal

Both law-making and legal interpretation involve a hermeneutic process of negotiating prejudices. Through confronting a text and engaging in the process of question and answer, an interpretation is obtained, representing a mixture of the legal horizon set by the law and the negotiated prejudices of the interpreter. A just application of legal texts only occurs due to the prejudices formed through an individual and a social consciousness. This Article focuses on the hermeneutic process in judicial decisions as exposed by differing judicial approaches based on the degree of law-making authority undertaken by the judiciary. Then, this Article demonstrates the explicit …

Oh No, Another Chatgpt Post: Incorporating Ai-Powered Chatbots Into Legal Research Exercises And Assignments, Olivia Smith Schlinck

Library Staff Online Writings

Since it was launched at the end of November 2022, the discourse around ChatGPT and AI search tools has been unrelenting. What impact will AI-powered chatbots have on education? Will students submit ChatGPT-written essays and homework assignments? Will AI make lawyers obsolete? Look, this chatbot just passed the bar exam! Wait a minute—is this thing. . . sentient?

Kolender’S Paper Earns Ohio Environmental Writing Award, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

When a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the soil, water, and air, Zoe Kolender knew the cleanup efforts would be an arduous task. But she also knew something most people don’t—that environmental disasters like the Norfolk Southern derailment are treated differently depending on the areas in which they occur.

Kolender, a 3L at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, had been studying the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) while developing a paper for Professor India Thusi’s seminar in Critical Race Theory. CERCLA …

Unbelievable: How Narrative Can Help Vulnerable Narrators Overcome Perceived Unreliability In The Legal System, Cathren Page

Articles

This article examines how advocates can champion vulnerable narrators’ truths. First, advocates must prime the audience by educating the audience about the ways the vulnerability manifests; this process helps to allay credibility questions. Second, advocates must reframe seemingly untrustworthy behavior by showing how the behavior is consistent with someone in the vulnerable narrator’s situation. Third, advocates must create what fiction writers call verisimilitude—a sense of reality—by including concrete details that logically fit together in the legal narrative. Finally, advocates must label the tactics commonly used to discredit vulnerable narrators so that the audience can see those tactics for what they …

Ssrn’S Impact On Citations To Legal Scholarship And How To Maximize It, Rob Wiley, Melanie Kanpp

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reconceiving Argument Schemes As Descriptive And Practically Normative, Brian N. Larson, David Seth Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

We propose a revised definition of “argument scheme” that focuses on describing argumentative performances and normative assessments that occur within an argumentative context, the social context in which the scheme arises. Our premise-and-conclusion structure identifies the typical instantiation of an argument in the argumentative context, and our critical framework describes a set of normative assessments available to participants in the context, what we call practically normative assessments. We distinguish this practical normativity from the rationally or universally normative assessment that might be imposed from outside the argumentative context. Thus, the practical norms represented in an argument scheme may still be …

Norms Of Public Argumentation And The Ideals Of Correctness And Participation, Frank Zenker, Jan Albert Van Laar, Bianca Cepollaro, Anca Gâță, Martin Hinton, Colin Guthrie King, Brian N. Larson, Marcin Lewinski, Christoph Lumer, Steve Oswald, Maciej Pichlak, Blake D. Scott, Mariusz Urbanski, Jean H.M. Wagemans

Faculty Scholarship

Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. …