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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

Tell your students to eat before oral argument so they don't faint

Posted on April 01, 2010
That's what happened to this 3L Duke law student who was arguing a habeas case before the 4th Circuit as part of Duke's Appellate Litigation Clinic - he fainted as a result of failing to eat a hearty breakfast. After...

Even judges Google

Posted on March 31, 2010
The Second Circuit recently ruled that a federal district judge who used Google to research his hunch about an issue raised in a criminal trial did not violate the federal rules of evidence. The defendant in the case was suspected...

Tips on Responding to Negative Criticism in an Academic Environment

Posted on March 31, 2010
Sometimes I think we can worry too much about our students' happiness at the expense of our own. Indeed, we're not much good to them as teachers unless we take care of our own mental health needs first. One can't...

Changes in the Next Edition of the ALWD Citation Manual

Posted on March 31, 2010
Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers held a legal writing seminar in early March in Chicago. One of the speakers on that wonderful program was Darby Dickerson, Dean of Stetson University College of Law and the Citation Goddess behind the...

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Stetson Webinar on Commenting on Student Papers

Posted on March 30, 2010
Stetson University College of Law has been hosting a series of webinars for legal writing faculty. I've enjoyed these programs tremendously and find them both interesting and helpful. Today's program featured Kirsten Davis (the Director of the Legal Writing Program...

Registration now open for Emory conference on transactional skills

Posted on March 29, 2010
Emory is delighted to announce that the web site for its conference - Transactional Education: What?s Next? - is open for registration. Registration The registration fee for the conference is $179.00. It includes a pre-conference lunch, snacks, and the reception...

Helene Shapo Wins the Burton Award

Posted on March 28, 2010
Helene Shapo (Northwestern University School of Law) was announced as the recipient of this year?s Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education. The award will be given to Helene at the Burton Awards banquet in June in Washington,...

Can YOU Teach Legal Writing While Wearing a Chicken Suit?

Posted on March 26, 2010
A bit of Friday Fun. A legal writing professor from one of those states out west (it rhymes with Nevada) agreed to teach in a chicken suit if enough students donated to the law school's Public Interest Law Society. It...

Student who sues over "C" in legal writing class loses on appeal too.

Posted on March 26, 2010
The online ABA Journal is reporting on the appellate denouement of a case we reported on back in November involving a New York Law School student who sued because he received a "C" in his legal writing class. According to...

Tips on preparing for oral argument by Chief Justice Roberts

Posted on March 25, 2010
While looking for some hand-outs on how to prep for oral argument to give to my students, I came across this short article from the New York Law Journal describing how Chief Justice Roberts used to prepare when he was...

Another oral argument anecdote - Chief Justice Roberts lets advocates continue past the red light

Posted on March 25, 2010
Among the perennial advice to 1L's prepping for their first moot court arguments this semester is to tell them that when the red light comes on, they need to stop mid-sentence (and ask the court for permission to finish which...

Google Scholar corrects footnote errors in response to reader's comment

Posted on March 25, 2010
It's nice to know the good folks at Google Scholar read our blog. A few months ago, legal research scholar and expert Chris Wren brought to our attention a flaw he'd discovered with Google Scholar. Specifically, he found a discrepancy...

How to teach the writing teachers to teach, um, writing

Posted on March 24, 2010
This article from Inside Higher Ed is directed at undergraduate writing instructors but the thrust of it - examining ways to better train writing teachers to handle the challenges posed by students who arrive on campus with progressively weaker writing...

In a PoMo world, even the definition of "reading" is in play.

Posted on March 24, 2010
That's the message from this article in the New York Times explaining that technology is changing the way we define what it means to "read." The article profiles a new book by Jaron Lanier called You Are Not a Gadget...

One writing expert warns against using boilerplate language in briefs

Posted on March 24, 2010
It's our good buddy Raymond Ward from the (new) legal writer blog and his advice comes just in time for moot court season: One of the rules I follow when writing anything intended to persuade someone else is this: No...

kudos, Terry!

Posted on March 24, 2010
At the Rocky Mountain regional legal writing conference last Saturday, Terry Pollman, who teaches at UNLV, was honored with the first Rocky Mountain Award. The conference organizers wanted to do something new to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding...

Hitler Finds Out There is a New Edition of the Bluebook

Posted on March 23, 2010
While doing some video research last week, Professor Karin Mika discovered a series of "viral videos"on YouTube parodying Adolf Hitler in a scene from the German movie, "The Downfall of Hitler." The movie clips change the English subtitles into something...

SCOTUS does webpage make-over

Posted on March 23, 2010
A few sources have reported to us that the United States Supreme Court website just got an update and is now feeling as fresh and frisky as a new speckled pup. As of last week, the website hadn't been updated...

What's the best online research engine outside Wexis?

Posted on March 22, 2010
According to the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, Casemaker is the best research engine for state law among the second-tier contenders which also includes Fastcase, Loislaw and Google Scholar. When I started this project, I assumed that Loislaw would...

George Washington University Student Wins Scribes Legal Writing Award at National Conference of Law Reviews

Posted on March 22, 2010
A student from George Washington University School of Law has won the prestigious Scribes Law Review Writing Award for the best law review article published during 2009. This marked the second time that George Washington University has won the award,...

Emerging "best practices" for online writing courses

Posted on March 22, 2010
As undergraduate freshmen writing courses begin to move online, the Conference on College Composition and Communication is beginning to develop "best practices" to ensure quality instruction in that arena. As Inside Higher Ed reports: Leaders of the association, gathered [in...

Scholarship alert: "Ten necessary myths of law school" (and legal writing is one of them)

Posted on March 22, 2010
The article is authored by Professor David Crump of the University of Houston Law School and can be found at 10 J. Law Soc'y 33 (2009). Among the top 10 "myths" are: That the study of lawyering strategies (sometimes called...

Empire State Legal Writing Conference

Posted on March 22, 2010
Hofstra Law School is preparing for the inaugural Empire State Legal Writing Conference, which will take place on Friday, May 14, 2010 at the Law School, located in Hempstead, New York, approximately 20 miles east of New York City. The...

legal un-writing

Posted on March 19, 2010
It's a brave new world when it comes to undoing your legal writing. Here's a helpful new article on how redact text successfully. hat tip: Nolan Wright (spl)

Shakespeare for lawyers

Posted on March 19, 2010
The ABA had published this book, Shakespeare for Lawyers, so you can find the perfect quote for your next appellate brief or legislative committee hearing. If you're an ABA member, you get a discount on the price. And just for...

Essay alert: "Where Have All The (Legal) Stories Gone?"

Posted on March 17, 2010
Here's an essay by UNLV Law School Prof Nancy Rapoport available in the Fall 2009 edition of a publication called M/E Insights (Litigation Issues in the Entertain Industry) (but also available on SSRN here) that should be of interest to...

Stats on college student use of Wikipedia for research projects

Posted on March 17, 2010
A recent studyshows that approximately half of all college students turn to Wikipedia for course-related research projects. Most of those students use it at either the beginning, or towards the end, of their research trail. The Law Librarian Blog has...

Travel Information for the LWI Summer Conference

Posted on March 16, 2010
The Legal Writing Institute Conference will be held this summer at Marco Island, Florida from June 27-30, 2010. Although most attendees will likely be flying into Ft. Meyers, there are a number of other airports you can use. Click her...

Scholarship alert: "Toward a theory of persuasive authority'

Posted on March 16, 2010
This article is by Professor Chad Flanders of St. Louis U. School of Law and can be found at 62. Okla L. Rev. 55 (2009). From the abstract: As a court attaches some weight to any of the matters herein...

Scholarship alert: "Burying the living? The citation of legal writings in English courts"

Posted on March 16, 2010
This article is authored by Alexandra Braun, a Teaching Fellow of Law at Oxford, and can be found at 58 Am. J. Comp. L. 27 (2010). From the abstract: Until recently English judgments were characterized by a dearth of references...

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