Legal Writing Prof Blog: Legal Writing

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Writing Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Legal Writing

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

ideas for the first day of class

Posted on August 19, 2008
Everyone gets a little nervous when a new school year begins, no matter how many years of teaching experience he or she has accumulated. It helps to remember that the students are nervous, too. Many of us are thinking about...

picking or picking on the Court

Posted on August 19, 2008
Legal Times reporter Tony Mauro reports that presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have indicated that had the choice been theirs, they would not have appointed certain justices to the United States Supreme Court. McCain named Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens,...

ABA Meeting in Boston

Posted on August 18, 2008
Registration is open for the American Bar Association Midyear Meeting in Boston, February 11-17, 2009. The best part? Registration is free! Click here for more information. (mew)

Does Doug Manchester Still Own the San Diego Marriott?

Posted on August 18, 2008
The AALS has decided to keep its annual meeting in San Diego, but it won't hold any events at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Instead, it will hold all AALS events at the San Diego Marriott. Some people have noticed that...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

AALS Section on International Human Rights Law

Posted on August 18, 2008
The AALS Section on International Human Rights Law will repeat its wildly popular program, ?New Voices in Human Rights.? The program is for faculty members and other scholars who have not previously had an opportunity to present a scholarly paper...

Director Position: The John Marshall Law School -Chicago

Posted on August 18, 2008
THE JOHN MARSHALL LAW SCHOOL, CHICAGO is currently accepting applications for the position of Director of the Lawyering Skills Program, a tenure-track or tenured position, beginning in the 2009-10 academic year. The Lawyering Skills Program is a nationally ranked legal...

the mindset of this year's 1-L's

Posted on August 18, 2008
While this isn't the up-to-date mindset list on this year's freshman (it hasn't been released yet; but here's the site), it IS the list for the students we probably have in our 1-L classes this fall. Traditional college-to-law-school 1-L students...

AALS Does the Right Thing -- No AALS Events to Be Held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt

Posted on August 18, 2008
The Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools has just announced that the 2009 Annual Meeting of the AALS will still be held in San Diego, but that no AALS events will be held at the Manchester Grand...

new LRW scholarship

Posted on August 18, 2008
The links and abstracts below arrived in this morning's e-mail, courtesy of LSN (part of SSRN): LEGAL WRITING ABSTRACTS Sponsored by the Legal Writing Institute "Results of an Informal Student Survey on the 'Live Grading' Experience" MARK E. WOJCIK, The...

what's on your office door?

Posted on August 17, 2008
As a new semester starts, many legal writing professors are busy posting information on virtual and real world bulletin boards. In a time-honored academic tradition, many are also updating the notices and comic strips taped on their office doors. A...

Clarity

Posted on August 17, 2008
Here's a reminder about how to join Clarity, the international organization for legal writing in plain legal language. Click here for our earlier post. Clarity holds its next international conference in Mexico this November. (mew)

recent moot court "best brief" publications

Posted on August 16, 2008
Several of the national moot court tournaments publish the winning briefs in their law schools' specialty journals. Here are some of the "best briefs" published in the last two years. If you know of others (or if you can supply...

a lesson in logic from Monty Python

Posted on August 16, 2008
Here's another fun clip for the first few days of class, the classic scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail, in which Sir Bedevere helps the peasants with a difficult bit of reasoning: "So logically . . . " "If she...

Photos from the Scribes Luncheon Honoring Justice Scalia

Posted on August 15, 2008
An EXCLUSIVE here on the Legal Writing Prof Blog, courtesy of Scribes and Professor Joseph Kimble. Here are some of the photos from the Scribes luncheon held during the ABA Annual Meeting in New York. Justice Antonin Scalia received a...

Sage advice for classroom teachers both new and old.

Posted on August 15, 2008
For those of our subscribers who are classroom teachers come these words of wisdom from a senior faculty member to his son who is just beginning his career: "no matter how well you teach, you could always do it better...

The science of persuasion - A new book you may want to pick up.

Posted on August 15, 2008
I just finished reading "The Political Mind: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation" by Dr. Drew Westen (PublicAffairs 2007) (easily available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders and others) which reports on new research from...

job opening at University of Iowa

Posted on August 15, 2008
The University of Iowa College of Law seeks applicants to join its Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research Program faculty. Faculty in the program teach a course in legal analysis and writing to first-year students in small sections (total 35-45 students...

SSRN process demystified

Posted on August 15, 2008
The powerpoint for Susan Duncan's presentation at the recent LWI conference, Demystifying the SSRN Process: How To Make It Work for You, is now available online. Find the powerpoint link and other matters relating to SSRN in this post at...

webinar on legal writing ethics & professionalism

Posted on August 14, 2008
As part of their Project for Excellence in Legal Communication, Stetson University College of Law and Scribes, the American Society of Legal Writers, have collaborated to produce a one-hour webinar, Ethics and Professionalism in Legal Writing. Speakers include Kirsten Davis,...

quotable

Posted on August 14, 2008
In writing, you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but first you have to create the sow's ear. Your first draft is the sow's ear. --Charles Parnell (cmb)

"It was a dark and stormy night ...."

Posted on August 14, 2008
Those memorable words were first penned by Sir Bulwer-Lytton, for whom San Jose State University has named an annual contest for the most outrageous opening sentence to an imaginary novel. This article will introduce you to this year's winners. They....

creative citation

Posted on August 14, 2008
The Volokh Conspiracy blawg reports that a recent brief to a federal court contained an unusual and complicated citation to an opinion. Rather than cite the slip opinion according to conventional citation standards, the brief's author provided a complicated set...

What's the difference between "narrative" and "storytelling?"

Posted on August 13, 2008
Is "narrative" merely academic jargon for "storytelling?" Is there a difference between the two and if so, what is it? Here is one non-academic's attempt to answer that question. Hat tip to Ruth Anne Robbins. (jbl)

you do what?

Posted on August 13, 2008
Legal writing professors and practicing lawyers alike might appreciate this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about business-speak. hat tip: Professor Ruth Anne Robbins, Rutgers-Camden (spl)

Journal of the Legal Writing Institute - Volume 14 out now.

Posted on August 12, 2008
Volume 14 of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute has been mailed and should be arriving in subscriber's mailboxes shortly if it hasn't already. It contains articles based on last summer's Applied Storytelling Conference in London, England including an...

It takes a village ...

Posted on August 12, 2008
Professor Melissa Marlowe, who teaches Lawyering Skills at Southern Illinois University and also assists with some of the academic support work, has published an article that synthesizes elegantly many of the problems of U.S. legal education today: It Takes a...

A Handful of Handouts

Posted on August 11, 2008
We've had a request to repost links to handouts from presentations made this summer at the Legal Writing Institute conference in Indianapolis. You can click here and here for two of those posts. You can also click here for a...

Istanbul Legal Skills conference huge success.

Posted on August 11, 2008
The Istanbul Legal Skills conference just concluded at Bahcesehir University on Thursday and was a huge success by all accounts. http://www.istanbulskills.com/. Handouts from the conference will be available shortly on the website. In addition, Bahcesehir University will be publishing later...

click, click, click

Posted on August 11, 2008
Click, click, click. That's the sound of a roller coaster as it's just barely getting started. You hear a few slow clicks, and then there's more and more acceleration, and then you're in for the ride, climbing fast up to...

Justice Scalia Wins Lifetime Achievement in Writing Award from Scribes

Posted on August 10, 2008
At a luncheon yesterday at the Harvard Club in New York City, Scribes conferred its third-ever award to recognize lifetime achievement in writing. The recipient was Justice Antonin Scalia, who suggested that Scribes come up with a new name for...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Update on AILF's Legal Action Center Visa Bulletin Litigation (Updated 7/10/07)
The following is the latest update from AILF regarding its pening ...

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center Legislative Forecast
The ILRC Forecast on Immigration ReformJudith Golub, Executive Dir...

The Christian Legal Society and "discrimation": Response to Susan
In response to Susan's post, I'm inclined to think that, yes, the ...

Stacy Scnheider Legal Commentator Apprentice

Catholic Legal Theory and life and death
Tom Berg’s question regarding the propriety or not of capital pu...