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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

Legal writing prof tells online ABA Journal judges shouldn't withhold unpublished opinions from Wexis

Posted on March 16, 2010
Nova Southeastern's legal writing prof David Cleveland was quoted extensively in last week's online ABA Journal in an article entitled "A Judge's Unusual Request: Don't Print This in Westlaw or Lexis" discussing one federal judge's practice of restrictively endorsing his...

UT Dean responds to student editorial about lack of legal writing training

Posted on March 15, 2010
In a story we covered extensively last week precipitated by a student editorial decrying the lack of a mandatory brief-writing course in the 1L curriculum at U. of Texas School of Law, the UT Dean responded on Thursday with this...

Scholarship Alert - "Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews and Journals"

Posted on March 15, 2010
The wildly popular "how-to" guide for successfully placing scholarly publications written by UMKC School of Law Professors Nancy Levit and Alan Rostron has been recently updated and is available here on SSRN. From the abstract: This document contains information about...

Mel Weresh wins alumni service award

Posted on March 14, 2010
Legal writing director extraordinaire, Mel Weresh, has been named this year?s recipient of the University of Iowa?s Alumni Service Award. Congratulations Mel! hat tip: Ruth Anne Robbins (spl)

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update on U. Texas legal writing program

Posted on March 12, 2010
We have it on good authority: Yesterday the law faculty at the University of Texas approved doubling the credits for the required legal-writing courses and cutting the student-faculty ratio in half. Credits will go from 2 to 4, and the...

Chief Justice Roberts at the University of Alabama School of Law

Posted on March 11, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts spoke recently at the University of Alabama School of Law. The speech was recorded and made available on C-SPAN. Click here to watch (or listen to, while you do other work around your...

American Book Review's "Top 40 Bad Books."

Posted on March 11, 2010
After soliciting the opinions of many academics, the American Book Review has compiled this list of the "Top 40 Bad Books." What does it mean when we say a book is bad? "Is it an overrated 'good' book? Can an...

U. of Texas faculty to consider expanding legal writing curriculum in response to student demands

Posted on March 10, 2010
Earlier this week, we ran a couple of stories (here and here) about University of Texas students who are complaining about the lack of legal writing classes in UT's curriculum. Today, Above the Law is reporting that according to a...

Is this the most poorly written judicial decision ever?

Posted on March 09, 2010
With individual sentences topping out at more than 300 words each, Eric Turkewitz of the New York Personal Injury Blog sure thinks so: A decision from the Second Department in December in Dockery v Sprecher, regarding a $109M medical malpractice...

UT student newspaper declares "Law students need a practical education"

Posted on March 08, 2010
Apropos to the story below, the University of Texas' student newspaper, The Daily Texan, recently ran the above Op-Ed headline. It's a call by students for more legal writing and other skills courses in the UT curriculum. At one point,...

A University of Texas Professor Responds to Criticism About the UT Writing Program

Posted on March 08, 2010
Wayne Schiess from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law asked us to post this message in response to two articles posted this past weekend. The first article posted concerned a story that the University of Texas fails...

LWI Board Election Results

Posted on March 08, 2010
The Legal Writing Institute just announced the results of elections for candidates to serve on its Board of Directors. The field of 27 candidates who stepped forward was an exceptionally strong and competitive field, reflecting great interest in the work...

U. of Texas accused of failing to provide 1L's with adequate training in brief writing

Posted on March 07, 2010
According to The Blackbook Legal Blog, UT's first year curriculum doesn't include a mandatory brief writing class. Instead, it's a first year elective which only about half the students are able to register for. So instead of making the course...

The 10 best Academy Award related lawsuits

Posted on March 07, 2010
It's timely, fun and there may be some good writing hypos lurking in some of these. Courtesy of THR.com by way of Above the Law: Disney sues the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, alleging that the infamous Rob...

on plain English?

Posted on March 07, 2010
A column on plain English by Tommy Tomlinson, a Charlotte Observer columnist, might be just what some wordy law students need to read. hat tip: Eileen Kavanagh (spl) ?

Global Legal Skills Conference

Posted on March 06, 2010
The fifth Global Legal Skills Conference was held February 25-27, 2010 in Mexico at the Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey. Click here to see some photos and press coverage from this very successful conference. (mew)

The National Law Review Law Student Writing Competition

Posted on March 05, 2010
A publication called "The National Law Review" (is that a major typo I spy on the homepage?) which, according to its website, "consolidates practice-oriented legal analysis from a variety of sources for easy access by lawyers, paralegals, law students, business...

The secrets of brief writing rock-stardom

Posted on March 05, 2010
Here's an article by Ross Guberman of Legal Writing Prothat seeks to divine the brief writing secrets of SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts who many considered "one of the best, if not the best, advocates in the nation" before ascending...

legal researchers beware

Posted on March 04, 2010
Michael Whiteman, at Northern Kentucky University, has written an article on "The Death of Twentieth-Century Authority". Before calling in the CSI team, you might want to peruse his abstract: "The case of Bush v. Gore stands out as the seminal...

lifetime achievement award

Posted on March 04, 2010
This May, Stetson University College of Law will recognize Associate Dean Barbara E. Bergman, New Mexico School of Law, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching Advocacy. Associate Dean Bergman?s contributions to the field include: - working for...

Texas Tech Legal Practice Program honored

Posted on March 03, 2010
The Legal Practice Program at Texas Tech University School of Law has been awarded the Tech Teaching Academy's Departmental Excellence in Teaching Award. The award is given annually to a department that demonstrates a culture of teaching excellence through both...

Call for proposals--AALS Sections on Balance in Legal Education and Academic Support

Posted on March 02, 2010
From Emily Randon, UCDavis: CALL FOR PROPOSALS Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting January 5-9, 2011 A Joint Program of the Sections on Balance in Legal Education and Academic Support Co-Sponsored by the AALS Section on Student Services Theme:...

Mary Lawrence honored

Posted on March 02, 2010
In the days before there even was an academic field of legal writing, Mary Lawrence was a pioneer in the professional teaching of legal writing. Now Professor Emerita at the University of Oregon, she has been selected to receive that...

call for proposals--AALS

Posted on March 01, 2010
From Emily Randon, UCDavis: CALL FOR PROPOSALS AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW SCHOOLS ? 2011 Conference, Jan 5-9th A Joint Program of the Sections on Balance in Legal Education and Academic Support Co-Sponsored by the Section on Student Services Theme: ?Beyond...

want to be a legal writing director?

Posted on February 28, 2010
The University of Wisconsin Law School is seeking a Director for its Legal Research and Writing Program. Information about the law school?s legal research and writing program, the director position, and the application process is posted on the LWI website...

Is it time to hand over the law school keys to skills profs?

Posted on February 28, 2010
That's part of the message in this post from the Law Librarian Blog: According to Karen Sloan in her NLJ article entitled Holding schools accountable, "[t]he proposed [learning outcome accreditation] standards would help solidify a philosophical shift that is taking...

Rankin moving to Seattle

Posted on February 27, 2010
Seattle University has announced that Sara Rankin has accepted an offer to join its faculty. Sara, who was a partner at Kirkland and Ellis in Chicago and is currently a Legal Writing Instructor at the DePaul University College of Law,...

Scholarship alert: "Writing at the Master's Table: Reflections on Theft, Criminality and Otherness in the Legal Writing Profession"

Posted on February 26, 2010
This article is by Professor Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb, the Director of Legal Writing at La Verne College of Law. It is available in 2 Drexel L. Rev. 41 (2009) and can be accessed online here. From the author: This article...

Franklin Pierce Law Center Gets $1 Million Gift to Help Students Write Clearly

Posted on February 25, 2010
Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire has received a record $1 million gift to create the Mort Goulder Professorship of Legal Writing from the Goulder Family Foundation. The Goulder Professorship will help train Pierce Law students to express legal...

Print subscriptions for law reviews way down

Posted on February 25, 2010
According to a recent study by Professor Ross Davies of George Mason University School of Law, subscriptions rates are in decline, in some cases precipitously so. For example, the Harvard Law Review has seen its subscription numbers fall from 8,760...

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