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Legal Writing Prof Blog 

By law professors Coleen M. Barger, Sue Liemer and Nancy Soonpaa
Post Frequency: 31.6/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 15:42:31 Recent Entries: 2529
Go to Legal Writing Prof Blog, find other Legal Writing blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Fulbright for Tracy Bach
Posted on April 10, 2009Longtime legal writing professor Tracy Bach, at Vermont Law School, has been chosen as a Fulbright Scholar for the 2009-10 academic year. She will teach at the law and political science faculty of the University of Cheikh Anta Diop in...
briefs from Wisconsin case
Posted on April 10, 2009Here are the briefs from the Wisconsin case blogged below. Thanks to Chris Wren, I am attaching the following two documents: appellant's brief Download BLOG 2008AP1396 Wis Ct App 2008-11-12 Johnson v Roma II appellant's brief appellant's reply brief Download...
You think I'm grim? Look at what I have to read each day!
Posted on April 09, 2009If you follow this blog, you've likely noticed that I take a board view of what's pertinent to those interested in legal research and writing including, obviously, those who teach it, those who practice it and those who decide it...
Green Bag announces list of best legal writing of 2008
Posted on April 09, 2009Aside from being responsible for releasing the hottest legal collectibles on the planet, the much coveted SCOTUS bobbleheads, The Green Bag is a quarterly journal devoted to "good writing about the law." Each year, a board of advisors, comprised of...
what will innovative curricular changes mean for legal writing faculty?
Posted on April 09, 2009An interesting recent post (March 25, 2009) in Prawfsblawg considers the data from the 2008 Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) reporting student dissatisfaction with legal writing instruction and asks, "What are law schools doing to reconceive the traditional...
Amy Langenfeld receives tenure!
Posted on April 09, 2009This is the season of news of professors' promotions. Clearing perhaps the biggest hurdle in academia, Professor Amy Langenfeld has received tenure at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Amy received a unanimous faculty vote...
more kudos for Rutgers LRW profs!
Posted on April 09, 2009Yesterday, by unanimous faculty vote, Rutgers-Camden awarded Carol Wallinger a 5-year presumptively renewable contract, awarded Jason Cohen a promotion to Associate Clinical Professor and renewal of his contract, and awarded Sheila Rodriguez a promotion to Associate Clinical Professor and renewal...
engaging laptop users
Posted on April 09, 2009CALI has posted a webinair chock full of good advice on engaging law students who are using laptops in the classroom. hat tip: Prof. Candle Wester-Mittan (spl)
kudos, Sarah Ricks!
Posted on April 09, 2009Professor Sarah Ricks just learned she has been selected as a recipient of the Rutgers-Camden Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence, a campus-wide teaching prize. In addition, she was elected to the American Law Institute in March 2009. Are any other...
Is legal practice fundamentally changing or not? One lawyer says "no!"
Posted on April 08, 2009Ok, so one guy's opinion does not a consensus make. But who knows? Maybe he's right. The managing partner of San Francisco's Morrison & Foerster says that he doesn't think legal practice is undergoing fundamental change rather than a temporary,...
Watch those typos! Student newspaper messes up and pulls almost 20,000 copies as a result.
Posted on April 08, 2009Lord knows - I've made enough typos to cause both Merriam and Webster do a triple Lutz in their respective graves. But so far nothing I've messed up has incurred the wrath of major religious leaders - at least not...
Building a Better Legal Profession - national conference of law students seeks change
Posted on April 08, 2009We've all heard the old bromide "if it ain't broken, don't fix it," right? Well, folks, when it comes to today's legal job market, it's more busted than Eliot Spitzer's political career. The wheels have come off, the transmission's laying...
new legal writing scholarship
Posted on April 08, 2009Courtesy of the Legal Writing Institute and LSN, the following abstracts arrived today: Promoting In-Depth Analysis: A Three-Part Approach to Teaching Analogical Reasoning to Novice Legal Writers, Cumberland Law Review, Vol. 39, No. 3, Summer 2009, by Stephanie Hartung and...
job opening in North Carolina
Posted on April 07, 2009The Charlotte School of Law is looking for 3 or 4 full-time professors to teach legal writing in its Lawyering Process Program. CharlotteLaw is a new law school, opened in August 2006. Qualifications: · J.D. degree with excellent academic record....
job opening in Michigan
Posted on April 07, 2009Michigan State University recently approved expansion of its legal writing faculty, so the law school is looking for an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law to teach full-time in its Research, Writing, and Advocacy (RWA) Department, beginning July 1, 2009...
Save the Date: One-Day Conference to Explore Change in Legal Education After the Carnegie Report
Posted on April 06, 2009The John Marshall Law School in Chicago Illinois will hold a one-day conference on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 on "Change in Legal Education After the Carnegie Report." Scholars, deans, and professors in doctrinal and skills-based disciplines will explore new ways...
LRW at ASLCH
Posted on April 06, 2009The Association for the Study of Law, Culture & Humanities held its annual conference at Suffolk University School of Law this past weekend. Several legal writing professors gave presentations: Prof. Linda Berger (Mercer University) presented her paper exploring What Would...
Get ready to have your mind blown - "Picturing to Learn" a truly innovative teaching technique and its potential use in the law school classroom
Posted on April 06, 2009Here's a truly innovative teaching technique developed to help students understand difficult scientific concepts that might also have great potential in law school. It's called the "Picturing to Learn" project that began with the premise that asking scientists to visually...
Book alert: ?How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment?
Posted on April 06, 2009Just out by Harvard University Press is this book by Michèle Lamont, a professor of sociology and African and African American studies at Harvard which analyzes the system of academic peer review. According to a review in the Harvard Gazette:...
congratulations new ALWD officers!
Posted on April 06, 2009Professor Mary Garvey Algero is the new President-Elect of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. She will take office on August 1, 2009, and then for the 2010-11 academic year, she will automatically become President of the organization. Newly elected...
Web 2.0 classroom - boon or boondoggle?
Posted on April 06, 2009Yeah, I know this has been debated endlessly but I also know that some people, like me, nonetheless like to read about it because these discussions continue to inform our own understanding and opinions. This contribution comes from a Chronicle...
Scholarship alert: "Standing at the gates: a new librarian wonders about the future role of the profession in legal research education"
Posted on April 06, 2009A new article by Nolan L. Wright, a librarian at the University of Texas School of Law, is available at 27 Legal Ref. Serv. Q. 263-281 (2008) and in pdf form here. It should be available shortly on Westlaw and...
Global Legal Skills Conference IV
Posted on April 05, 2009Just a reminder -- the fourth Global Legal Skills Conference will be held at Georgetown University Law Center on June 4-6, 2009. (mew)
Richard Neumann to Receive the Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education
Posted on April 03, 2009Richard Neumann (Hofstra) will be the 2009 recipient of the Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education. He will receive the award at a banquet in June. Anne Kringel of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law tells...
Photos from the Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference
Posted on April 03, 2009Courtesy of Professor Karin Mika (Cleveland Marshall), we have a small selection of photos to share with you from the Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference. The photos here are in no particular order. You can click on any of the...
Ward Churchill verdict: Several jurors wanted to award him a significant amount
Posted on April 03, 2009The Colorado Daily is reporting today that a juror explained the verdict as a "compromise" to break a stalemate between one hold-out who wanted to award the plaintiff nothing and the remaining five who believed he was entitled to a...
Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing - new issue out now.
Posted on April 03, 2009Here's the index for Vol. 17, No. 2 (Winter 2009): "Down with the Death Penalty!" ? Using Hot Topics with a Twist to Introduce Persuasive Advocacy and Legal Ethics by Kimberly D. Phillips Teaching Tax and Other Tedious Topics by...
Scholarship alert: "Should We Care If the Case Digest Disappears?: A Retrospective Analysis and the Future of Legal Research Instruction"
Posted on April 03, 2009Several of us have discussed on the legal writing listserv and elsewhere whether the move away from the indexing method of legal research towards the word retrieval method characterized by online search engines deprives students of a key analytical aspect...
"in the case at bar"
Posted on April 03, 2009As I'm commenting on appellate brief drafts and discouraging students from using terms like "in the case at bar," I thought it would be good to ask what terms attorneys/judges generally do NOT want to see in student/associate writing. So...
Advice about grading exam essays while keeping your sanity intact
Posted on April 03, 2009This is an interesting article from Inside Higher Ed containing some helpful tips for grading undergraduate exams that apply equally to law school grading. While some of the advice is self-evident, I really like the author's emphasis on the need...
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Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
Can a probation officer make a decision that involves a medical decision and prohibit a person from leaving a state to get medical help?
well if you could get him to a mental health facility they could screen him for ...
This has happened 3 or 4 times a month now- they have turned the electric off 2 days consecutively, the water off about 9 or 10 times now, and our heat has broken 5 times (once it would not shut off, and we were forced t
i say stick with the apartment. eventually, everything possible will be replaced...

Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
Can a probation officer make a decision that involves a medical decision and prohibit a person from leaving a state to get medical help?
well if you could get him to a mental health facility they could screen him for ...
This has happened 3 or 4 times a month now- they have turned the electric off 2 days consecutively, the water off about 9 or 10 times now, and our heat has broken 5 times (once it would not shut off, and we were forced t
i say stick with the apartment. eventually, everything possible will be replaced...








