Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Individuals And Community, Discipline Building And Disciplinary Values: The First Twenty-Five Years Of The Legal Writing Institute, Chris Rideout

Faculty Articles

In this article Professor Rideout is the speaker at the Luncheon Speech during the Symposium “The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of Teaching & Scholarship”. Professor Rideout examines what the faculty and community in legal writing has been doing in the last twenty-five years that renders legal writing a discipline. Professor Rideout explains that in their work in legal writing, along with creating a community, faculty are also creating a discipline—one that has its own practices and that has its own embedded epistemologies, ideologies, and values. The underlying values constitute the legal writing community as a discipline—of legal writing—one …

An Autobiography Of A Digital Idea: From Waging War Against Laptops To Engaging Students With Laptops, Diana R. Donahoe

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is an autobiographical account of my attempt to bridge the digital divide to meet students' changing needs. When I first began teaching at Georgetown University Law Center in 1993, I employed many traditional teaching techniques and used printed textbooks. However, laptops soon began peppering my classroom; at first there were only a few, and then suddenly almost every student was hiding behind a laptop. I noticed that my students were looking down at their screens, typing furiously, instead of watching me while I discussed my material written on the blackboard or projected overhead. When I realized that I was …

Narrative, Normativity, And Causation, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay examines the relationship between constitutional narratives, causation, and normativity in the context of Barry Friedman’s book, The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution. In his book, Friedman provides a grand narrative of American constitutional history that emphasizes the role of public opinion in the development of American constitutional law. That narrative involves both implicit and explicit claims about the causal forces that shape constitutional doctrine and about normative constitutional theory. The aim of this essay is to identify those claims, excavate their theoretical assumptions, …

The Weiner-Rogers Law Library: An Invaluable Legal Resource, Jeanne Price

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Genre Analysis Of Introductions In Tort Textbooks., Tai Chooi Li

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study examines the introductions in Tort textbooks to determine the structure and patternings used by writers of this genre. A model for the introduction is then proposed. Five introductions are selected and analysed using Bhatia's(1993) framework to identify the moves in Introductions. Through the stratification process of MOVES and STEPS, findings reveal that similar moves are found across the introductions that were analysed due to the common communicative purposes of the writers. The seven areas of importance in Tort introductions found are the introduction and aim of Tort, distinguishing Tort with other areas of law, the role of policy …

Penderafan Dokumen Wasiat Islam Di Amanah Raya Berhad : Analisis Menurut Perspektif Islam., Al Azifah Mohd Safie

Student Works (2010-2019)

A document is a source of statement which in nature is dominant and authoritative in order to explain certain facts. Hence filing a Wasiyyaħ is more effective as it acts as a record where it can store and keep long term information due to the fact that a death of a person is uncertain. Therefore, this dissertation will be focusing on the prosess of drafting the document of Muslim’s bequests or known as Wasiyyaħ implemented at Amanah Raya Berhad, a Trustee Corporation in Malaysia. The primary objective of this research is to analyse the standard of drafting Muslim’s Wasiyyaħ in …

The Universe Of Thinkable Thoughts Versus The Facts Of Empirical Research, Joseph A. Custer

Faculty Publications

Mr. Custer considers the use of "literary warrant" as it affects the usefulness of the West Digest System, and reports on the results of a survey he conducted with both legal practitioners and law faculty. He concludes that the West Digest System has some viability, but it will need to extend its literary warrant to remain a player in today's legal culture.

Change And Continuity (Rip Van Winkle's Reference Office), Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

How much has law librarianship changed over the past twenty years? Ms. Whisner imagines coming back to her library after being asleep for twenty years, and concludes that while our tools have changed, the basics of our jobs have remained remarkably stable.

Enact Locally, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Legal researchers often forget about municipal ordinances when looking for governing authority. Ms. Whisner discusses the wide range of topics that can be covered by local law, and encourages law librarians to think about it both when researching and when teaching the process of legal research

Learning From Reference Experience, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

While we all learn from experience, law librarians seeking to improve their reference skills can speed up the learning process by using some of the methods Ms. Whisner outlines.

The Rewards Of Tedium, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

While routine projects can be tedious, Ms. Whisner points out factors that make those tedious projects a little easier to bear, as well as some lessons to be learned from a specific project she undertook.

Time To Blossom: An Inquiry Into Bloom’S Taxonomy As A Hierarchy And Means For Teaching Legal Research Skills, Paul D. Callister

Faculty Works

Within law librarianship and legal education, there has been far too little scholarly engagement on the underlying pedagogy at the heart of legal research instruction. To correct this deficiency, law librarianship needs to open a dialogue and should consider adapting Bloom’s Taxonomy as a common schema for a collaborative effort.

This paper was initially presented at the "Conference on Legal Information: Scholarship and Teaching," held at the University of Colorado Law School on June 21-22, 2009, as part of its Boulder Summer Conference Series. It follows the author's own recently published challenge to law librarianship and legal research instructors to …

Leaps And Bounds, Nestor M. Davidson

Michigan Law Review

Imagine how stunted our understanding of the federal government would be without any detailed scholarly examination of the U.S. Constitution itself. As remarkable as that sounds, that is essentially the problem that Gerald Frug and David Barron have set out to remedy for local governments in their superb City Bound. In the book, Frug and Barron take a comprehensive, empirical look at the legal frameworks under which cities and other local governments operate, providing an invaluable roadmap for understanding the hidden architecture of legal constraints that-largely without notice-are shaping America's urban future. Why this kind of analysis has rarely been …

A Review Of Richard A. Posner, How Judges Think (2008), Jeffrey S. Sutton

Michigan Law Review

I was eager to enter the judiciary. I liked the title: federal judge. I liked the job security: life tenure. And I could tolerate the pay: the same as Richard Posner's. That, indeed, may have been the most flattering part of the opportunity-that I could hold the same title and have the same pay grade as one of America's most stunning legal minds. Don't think I didn't mention it when I had the chance. There is so much to admire about Judge Posner-his lively pen, his curiosity, his energy, his apparent understanding of: everything. He has written 53 books, more …

The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching & Scholarship, Robin Boyle

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

BRITTANY FLOWE: Welcome everyone. I am Brittany Flowe, the Lead Articles editor of the Mercer Law Review. On behalf of all the students and faculty, we are truly grateful for your presence here today. We are excited and honored to be celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversa­ry of the Legal Writing Institute. Thank you all for being here; we are looking forward to a wonderful panel. Now, I would like to introduce Dean Daisy Hurst Floyd.

DEAN DAISY FLOYD: Thank you everyone. Good morning. It is my great privilege to welcome you to Macon, to Mercer University, and to Mercer University's …

Meeting Students’ Demand For Models Of Good Legal Writing, Patricia Grande Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

First-year legal writing students always plead for model examples of the types of writing we teach. Though most legal writing texts include an appendix of sample legal documents, the students invariably ask for more. They insist that a multitude of samples are needed to fully grasp the structure and organizational approach that is expected of them. Their reasons for wanting models of good legal writing are not without merit. Interoffice memoranda, trial and appellate briefs, as well as the other kinds of legal documents we teach in the first-year writing curriculum are unlike anything our law students have previously …

Leveraging A Library Collection Through Collaborative Digitization Ventures, Femi Cadmus, Fred Shapiro

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Bobbitt, The Rise Of The Market State, And Race, George A. Martinez

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Symposium: Reasoning From Literature, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

The “literary turn” in legal studies manifests in many ways in our legal discipline and practice. Be it with the birth of the study of law and literature in the 1980s, the growing attention to narrative theory and storytelling in the law in the 1990s, or the “cultural turn” in legal studies in the 21st century (as some scholars have called the cultural analysis of law), reasoning from literature seems commonplace. And yet it is still marginalized in legal studies as interdisciplinary, not “really law,” and lacking the core persuasive power that legal argumentation and doctrinal analysis do. This Symposium …

Further Reflections On Post-Realist Legal Scholarship And Teaching: A Brief Response To Professor Scordato, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In this article, the author scrutinizes Professor Marin Roger Scordato’s recommendations regarding legal scholarship and teaching in the post-realist era. The author takes issue with some of Scordato’s recommendations on how to resolve the tension between instrumentalism and formalist legal discourse. Rather than devoting the bulk of their instruction to conventional doctrines and formalist analysis, the author suggests that instrumentalist law professors give greater relative emphasis to instrumentalist critiques.