Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Masthead, Editorial Board

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The “Step-Child Of Scholarly Investigation”: Preliminary Observations About The Origins Of Academic Jewish Law Scholarship, David Hollander

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Identity: The Demand For Dignity And The Politics Of Resentment, Elizabeth Adamo Usman

Law Faculty Scholarship

This review examines Francis Fukuyama’s Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment and evaluates both its substantive thesis and its relevance to legal writing pedagogy. The reviewer summarizes Fukuyama’s three-part argument: that modern identity politics, rooted in the concept of thymos (the human desire for recognition), has reshaped political conflict; that this development poses a significant threat to liberal democratic institutions; and that a renewed, creedal national identity grounded in universal democratic values offers a necessary remedy. The review highlights major criticisms of Fukuyama’s historical framing, normative claims, and policy proposals, including his emphasis on assimilation and …

Why Fifty: An Analysis Of The Small Business Exemption Codified In The Family And Medical Leave Act Of 1993, Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes the small business exemption codified in the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), which limits coverage to employers with fifty or more employees and thereby excludes a substantial portion of the American workforce from job-protected leave. Situating the FMLA within the broader landscape of federal employment legislation, the author examines the legislative history that led Congress to adopt a significantly broader small business exemption than those found in comparable statutes such as Title VII and the ADA. The article demonstrates that political compromise—shaped by concerns about employer costs and small business burdens—produced a threshold that …

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: The Court’S Premier Defender Of The Fourth Amendment, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

This essay posits that Justice Sonia Sotomayor is the Supreme Court’s chief defender of the Fourth Amendment and the cherished values it protects. She has consistently defended Fourth Amendment freedoms—in majority, concurring, and especially in dissenting opinions. Part I recounts a few of her majority opinions in Fourth Amendment cases. Part II examines her concurring opinion in United States v. Jones. Part III examines several of her dissenting opinions in Fourth Amendment cases. A review of these opinions demonstrates what should be clear to any observer of the Supreme Court: Justice Sotomayor consistently defends Fourth Amendment principles and values.

Fixed Stars: Famous First Amendment Phrases And Their Indelible Impact, David L. Hudson Jr., Jacob David Glenn

Law Faculty Scholarship

Some passages in First Amendment law have taken on a life and legend of their own, entering our cultural lexicon for their particular power, precision or passion. Some phrases are just so beautifully written that they cannot escape notice. Others aptly capture the essence of a key concept in a memorable way. Still others seemingly have grown in importance simply by the frequency for which they are cited in later court decisions. This article analyzes ten phrases from U.S. Supreme Court First Amendment decisions that qualify as some of the most enduring passages in First Amendment jurisprudence.

Technologies Of Language Meet Ideologies Of Law, Anya Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

This Article challenges this new prevailing wisdom, puts legal corpus linguistics in the context of other meaning-making technologies, and suggests an approach for analyzing any technology of language in the law. One of my aims is to caution against technological exceptionalism—a view that computerized, automated, or big-data approaches are somehow special, perhaps more trustworthy, less subjective, and most likely to succeed. Rather, I argue that we should ask the same questions and make the same demands of any method of interpretation.

Any technology, after all, is only as useful as the way it is used: Technology depends on technique. So …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Speaking The Truth: Supporting Authentic Advocacy With Professional Identity Formation, Laura A. Webb

Law Faculty Publications

When law students are asked to articulate legal rules in a persuasive communication such as a brief, they may experience internal tension. Their version of the rule, as framed to benefit a particular client’s position, may be different from the way they would articulate the rule if they were not taking on an advocate’s role. The conflict between those two versions of a legal rule leads some students to wonder if advocacy itself is deceptive, if an advocate’s role requires one to sacrifice ethics for success, and if ancient Greek philosophers were correct when they derided persuasive communication as “trickery …

Reign Of Error: District Courts Misreading The Supreme Court Over Rooker–Feldman Analysis, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Edward L. Baskauskas

Faculty Scholarship

Seventeen decisions in nine U.S. district courts from 2006 through 2019 have taken a demonstrably misgrounded starting point for Rooker–Feldman analysis. The cases have read language from a 2006 Supreme Court opinion, in which the Court quoted criteria stated by the lower court, as their guideline. But the Court summarily vacated the lower court’s judgment, and it had previously articulated, and has repeated, different criteria for federal courts to follow. The district-court decisions all appear to have reached correct results, but the mistake about criteria should be recognized and avoided as soon as possible before it creates potential mischief. And …

The Gaps Model And Faculty Services: Quality Analysis Through A “New” Lens, Alex Zhang, Sherry Xin Chen

Faculty Scholarship

Faculty service is an important function of U.S. academic law libraries. This article evaluates three types of faculty services programs using the Gaps Model to identify, analyze, and propose ways to fill four main gaps: knowledge, policy, delivery, and service quality.

De-Democratizing Criminal Law, Benjamin Levin

Publications

No abstract provided.

Exemplary Legal Writing 2019: Five Recommendations, G. Edward White, Sarah Seo

Faculty Scholarship

In the song “Natalie Cook” from the musical podcast “36 Questions,” a married couple deals with the fallout from the husband’s discovery that his wife is really an individual named Judith, who “built a past / Made up a history / Details that fit this person named / Natalie.” When the husband accuses the wife, “You’re the one who made her up,” Natalie/Judith responds, “It was a bit more collaborative than you’re remembering.”

Considering Legitimacy, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

This Article on Richard Fallon’s Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court focuses on public acceptance of the Supreme Court’s authority, what Fallon calls sociological legitimacy. After setting out Fallon’s accounts of legitimacy and constitutional argumentation, the Article looks at public opinion data and political science scholarship on the extent to which the Court’s decisions affect public acceptance of the Court. It then turns to the normative question of whether, even if the Court’s decisions may undermine its sociological legitimacy, that impact is a legally legitimate factor for the Court to consider. The Article argues that strategic consideration of the …

Exposing The Imposter: Imposter Syndrome & Legal Writing Faculty, Sara L. Ochs

Events at Dickinson Law

Legal academics often report crippling feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, symptoms of a widespread trend labeled as “imposter syndrome.” Experts have defined this phenomenon as a “deep and sometimes paralyzing belief that we have been given something we didn’t earn and don’t deserve and that at some point we’ll be exposed.” Given the evident hierarchies in legal academia, these feelings are especially prominent among legal writing faculty, and even more so among those in untenured positions. Using empirical data acquired from law professors, this presentation will analyze the prevalence and causes of imposter syndrome among legal writing faculty and will …

Research Instruction At Yale Law School, Julie Graves Krishnaswami

Events at Dickinson Law

At Yale Law School, the Law Librarians take a holistic approach to providing legal research instruction. With that approach, we meet students where they are – academically and curricularly – through courses, reference consultations, guest lectures, and workshops. We provide elective research instruction in a variety of fora to meet the needs of our students. Our research courses are elective and are supplemented by workshops and guest lectures in clinical and doctrinal courses, and for student groups. Yale Law School students recognize the need for research instruction, and we have expanded our offerings to meet demand. The Law Library’s holistic …

Making Two Separates Equal: Combining Graduation Requirements And Research And Writing Skills, Ann Walsh Long

Events at Dickinson Law

ABA Standard 303 requires that a law school offer a curriculum that requires each student to satisfactorily complete at least one professional responsibility course, one upper-level writing course, and one or more experiential course(s) totaling at least six credit hours. While the same class cannot count toward more than one of these requirements, Interpretation 303-1 allows one course to count as "either as an upper-class writing requirement or as a simulation course provided the course meets all of the requirements of both types of courses and the law school permits a student to use the course to satisfy only one …