Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Increasing Substantive Fairness And Mitigating Social Costs In Eviction Proceedings: Instituting A Civil Right To Counsel For Indigent Tenants In Pennsylvania, Robin M. White

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The U.S. Constitution provides criminal defendants the right to a court-appointed attorney but gives no similar protection to civil litigants. Although federal law does not supply any categorical rights to counsel for civil litigants, all 50 states have instituted the right in at least one category of civil law that substantially impacts individuals’ rights. Since 2017, several U.S. cities have enacted such a right for tenants facing eviction. In so doing, these cities responded to American families’ increasing rent burden, the recent publication of nationwide eviction data, the sociological research concerning the impact of eviction, and the lack of procedural …

The “Innocence Penalty”: Is It More Pronounced For Juveniles?, Nilam A. Sanghvi, Elizabeth A. Delosa

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Despite the presumption of innocence, we know that individuals accused of crimes are punished for maintaining their innocence in ways both tangible and intangible as they make their way through our criminal justice system. For example, even if instructed not to, jurors may infer guilt from a defendant’s failure to testify; defendants who exercise their right to go to trial receive lengthier sentences if convicted than those who plead guilty; and, once convicted, defendants who maintain their innocence are often denied opportunities for parole or clemency. This article explores whether these “innocence penalties” are even greater for children who are …

Feres: The “Double-Edged Sword”, Kaitlan Price

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In Feres v. United States, the Supreme Court barred service members from suing the Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act if the injuries occurred “incident to military service.” In establishing this doctrine, the Court discussed the necessity of protecting the military from lawsuits to ensure effective decision-making by military leaders.

Scholars have harshly criticized Feres in the modern era, arguing Feres must be overturned to provide service members with a greater opportunity for recovery. Specifically, many scholars admonish Feres because the Supreme Court failed to provide a clear definition of “incident to military service.” Lacking a clear definition …

Young, Black, And Wrongfully Charged: A Cumulative Disadvantage Framework, Emily Haney-Caron, Erika Fountain

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The term wrongful conviction typically refers to the conviction or adjudication of individuals who are factually innocent. Decades of research has rightfully focused on uncovering contributing factors of convictions of factually innocent people to inform policy and practice. However, in this paper we expand our conceptualization of wrongful conviction. Specifically, we propose a redefinition that includes other miscarriages of justice: A wrongful conviction is a conviction or adjudication for someone who never should have been involved in the juvenile or criminal legal system in the first place. Although there are various miscarriages of justice that might appropriately be categorized under …

Ai And Legal Scholarship : Reflections On Evolution And Influences, Jonathon W. Penney

Articles & Book Chapters

Leading Legal Disruption: Artificial Intelligence and a Toolkit for Lawyers and the Law is designed to challenge lawyers with the practical implications that emerging technologies will have on delivering legal services and thinking about legal issues to navigate their digital transformation. By inviting thought leaders across the world and in different disciplines, ranging from privacy, contract law, and torts to governance and policy, this book goes beyond abstract and general philosophical observations on matters that concern practitioners. This practical approach has generated a wide range of global perspectives, which are refreshingly novel and timely for what are increasingly global issues. …

The Unified Legal Skills Program: How One Law School Adapted To Meet The Needs Of Students Online, And How Those Adaptations May Inform Post-Pandemic Teaching, David Austin, Allison D. Cato, Amy E. Day, Liam Vavasour

Faculty Scholarship

When CWSL was forced to switch to online learning for the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked hard to follow best practices for online learning by attending online conferences and voraciously reading everything we could find to make the learning experience the best we could for our students. CWSL's Legal Skills program earned high praise in student evaluations for adapting so quickly given the difficult circumstances.

During the summer of 2020, we met as a Legal Skills team to discuss how to approach the regular school term. Specifically, we faced a larger-than-anticipated first-year class and contemplated how to remedy the sense of …

The Absence Or Misuse Of Statistics In Forensic Science As A Contributor To Wrongful Convictions: From Pattern Matching To Medical Opinions About Child Abuse, Keith A. Findley

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The new scrutiny that has been applied to the forensic sciences since the emergence of DNA profiling as the gold standard three decades ago has identified numerous concerns about the absence of a solid scientific footing for most disciplines. This article examines one of the lesser-considered problems that afflicts virtually all of the pattern-matching (or “individualization”) disciplines (largely apart from DNA), and even undermines the validity of other forensic disciplines like forensic pathology and medical determinations about child abuse, particularly Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma (SBS/AHT). That problem is the absence or misuse of statistics. This article begins by applying …

It’S Worth Whatever Someone Paid For It: How Courts Have Misinterpreted Bfp’S Reasoning, Jacob Ryder

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Historically, bankruptcy courts have used the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance powers—fraudulent conveyances in § 548 and preferential transfers in § 547—to avoid pre-bankruptcy-petition transfers. These avoidance powers were used even when the transfer in question was a mortgage or tax foreclosure sale. This has changed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in BFP v. Resolution Trust Corp. The BFP Court concluded that § 548 could not be used to avoid a mortgage foreclosure sale that complied with state foreclosure law. To do so, the Court had to interpret the operative language in § 548: “reasonably equivalent value.” The Court …

Two's Company. Three's A Crowdsourcing Activity?, Rosa Castello

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The start of a new school year has always excited me. As a student, it meant new supplies, new clothes, new opportunities. As a professor, I still like the newness each semester beginning brings. This past academic year brought a lot of newness with online teaching. It forced me to confront my fears and hesitations about using technology to achieve pedagogical goals and to embrace some of the exciting ways technology can be used to successfully achieve these goals. One tool I adopted from the tech world this past year—that both supported my goal of incorporating social justice issues …

Improve Recitals And Consideration Clauses With Plain Language, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

As used in a "WHEREAS" clause, the term "whereas" simply means "considering that" or "that being the case." There is no legal effect to the word "whereas." It, like many other words used in standard contract boilerplate, is left over from some long-forgotten era of legal writing when lawyers used big words and legalese to impress clients with their intelligence and to justify their bills. These times have (or at least should have) passed. Today, documents must be accessible to those who use them: in most cases the clients for whom such documents are drafted.

Legal Research & Writing: An Undergraduate Pre-Law Course Design, Rachel Kathleen Strieber

Senior Theses

The purpose of this project-based thesis is to develop an undergraduate pre-law course that teaches legal research and writing (LRW) and to design its respective description, topics, reading materials, sample syllabus document, and a sample lesson plan. The research portion of this thesis will study the pedagogy of LRW and the connection between LRW skills and the students’ success in law school and careers in law. Preparing students to excel in LRW skills prior to law school through the proposed undergraduate pre-law LRW course will yield a stronger performance in a first-year law LRW course to follow and amplify students’ …

Contemporary Issues In Administrative Law, Amy L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarship

This symposium panel discussion, published in the Belmont Law Review, examines contemporary issues in Tennessee administrative law through the perspectives of an administrative law judge, a state agency general counsel, and an attorney from the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office

8BelmontLRev581 . The panel explores the evolving scope of judicial review, statutory deference to agency decision-making under the Tennessee Uniform Administrative Procedures Act (UAPA), and the practical implications of recent legislative changes expanding venue for judicial review. Panelists analyze the mechanics and challenges of state rulemaking, including executive oversight, Attorney General review for legality and constitutionality, legislative approval through the …

The Supreme Court's Worst Decision In Recent Years--Garcetti V. Ceballos, The Dred Scott Decision For Public Employees, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

The United States Supreme Court decision of Garcetti v. Ceballos deserves its rightful place in the Court’s hall of shame. In Garcetti, the Court issued a decision that serves as a Dred Scott-type ruling for public employees, diminishing their free speech rights to an unacceptable level. The Court created a categorical rule that public employees have no free speech rights when engaged in official, job-related speech.

Under Garcetti, it does not matter how valuable an employee’s speech is, how much corruption that speech exposes, or whether the speech informs the public regarding an important issue. Instead, the five-justice majority focused …

Legal Writing Manual (2nd Edition), Jean Mangan, Brittany Blanchard, Gabrielle Gravel, Chase Lyndale, Connely Doizé

Books

This manual provides you with an overview of first-year legal writing topics and provides checkpoints during your writing process. On the other hand, this manual does not answer every question you have ever had on any legal writing concept and it is certainly not a spellbook that will make you instantly awesome at legal writing. Writing as a skill is a lifelong development process. Everyone can be an effective legal writer. Put in the time to study the concepts and then to practice using those concepts in your writing. Seek feedback on your writing and implement the feedback you receive. …

Table Of Contents & Masthead, Zachary R. Carstens

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Art Of The Matter: A Linguistic Analysis Of Public Art Policy In Confederate Monument Removal Case Law, Kristi Arth

Law Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of such tragedies as the Charleston, South Carolina mass shooting, the deadly Unite the Right Rally, and the death of George Floyd, various communities have engaged in efforts to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces. These removal efforts frequently result in litigation focused on ownership rights, government speech, and other claims. This article asks what responsibility the judiciary and litigants have to acknowledge that Confederate monuments—for better or for worse—are creations of public art.
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/="/">Whether the monuments stay or go at the end of a given lawsuit, the outcome affects the public art policy of …

Self-Determination In American Discourse: The Supreme Court’S Historical Indoctrination Of Free Speech And Expression, Jarred Williams

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Within the American criminal legal system, it is a well-established practice to presume the innocence of those charged with criminal offenses unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a judicial framework-like approach, called a legal maxim, is utilized in order to ensure that the law is applied and interpreted in ways that legislative bodies originally intended.

The central aim of this piece in relation to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is to investigate whether the Supreme Court of the United States has utilized a specific legal maxim within cases that dispute government speech or expression regulation. …

Table Of Contents & Pepperdine Law Review Masthead, Colten Stanberry

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Grey Literature Cited By Food Loss Law And Policy Scholarship, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, state and federal programs, rules, and legislation attempt to address the social, economic, and environmental impacts of food waste. Research on the efficacy of these interventions rely on a variety of grey literature resources. Grey literature is valuable to policy research but may be overlooked because it is not published commercially and is often deemed unauthoritative. This review focuses on the use of grey literature in food waste law and policy scholarship to identify the most used sources and to determine what, if any, archiving strategies authors use. Recommendations for librarians and researchers are discussed.

Eight Strategies That Enhance Legal Writing, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

A few years ago, I spoke about legal writing at an annual forum of Missouri’s appellate judges, held at the University of Missouri School of Law in Columbia. The hour-long presentation advanced eight strategies that enable judges and practicing lawyers to sharpen their writing. These eight strategies appear below in this article.