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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

feeding the masses . . . or at least the class

Posted on January 12, 2010
Do you feed students? Do you let them have class outside or in a lounge area instead of a classroom? Why? For me, I feed them sometimes . . . and not just the day that I hand out evaluations...

Paralyzed Veterans of America Writing Competition (for law professors and law students)

Posted on January 12, 2010
The Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) is holding its Sixth Annual Writing Competition for law professors and law students. Veterans law is a branch of administrative law that usually does not get much attention, but this year's topic offers a...

The votes are in - the ABA Journal's top 15 law prof blogs

Posted on January 11, 2010
To follow up on our story about the recent ABA Journal reader poll to determine the top 100 legal blogs, the results for the "legal theory" category are reported below. Congrats to our blog-mates at the Legal Profession and TaxProfblogs...

A misplaced comma can lead to grief and then litigation

Posted on January 11, 2010
Here are a couple of stories from Ken Adams' blog on contracts, which has been recognized for excellence by the online ABA Journal, about how a misplaced comma can materially change the meaning of a document. The first example involves...

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Will the focus on learning outcomes help skills courses like legal writing?

Posted on January 11, 2010
The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting on the current movement towards "outcome assessments" in law school and the pressure that's being placed on law schools to produce students who have the skills employers want: [S]upporters of the proposed revisions...

Law Student Gets Married, then Goes to Legal Writing Class

Posted on January 11, 2010
I just finished giving a guest lecture to second semester students in a legal writing class taught by Professor Ruth Hargrove at California Western School of Law in San Diego. (She's pictured here. Many of you met her at the...

Google dictionary now includes legal definitions

Posted on January 10, 2010
From the Law Librarian Blog: Google has invaded the legal world in yet one more way. It now offers a dictionary which includes legal terms. It's not exactly going to challenge Black's for authority or definitions, but it seems to...

thank you Lexis!

Posted on January 10, 2010
The Co-Chairs of the ALWD-LWI Scholarship Committee, Robin Wellford Slocum (teaching at Chapman) and Sarah Ricks (teaching at Rutgers-Camden) have announced that LexisNexis is donating $10,000 to add to the pool of grant money available to fund the 2010 scholarship...

Legal writing programs are pedagogical cancer? Really?

Posted on January 10, 2010
In a provocative essay, Professor Charles Rounds of Suffolk University Law School says the reason law students are ill prepared for practice these days is because, among other things: 1. concerns about students' self-esteem and grade inflation trump classroom rigor;...

Scholarship alert: "Meeting the Carnegie report's challenge to make legal analysis explicit-subsidiary skills to the IRAC framework"

Posted on January 09, 2010
This one is by Nelson P. Miller and Charles J. Bradley and is found at 59 J. Legal Educ. 192 (2009). Unfortunately, as of this writing, it's not yet available on Westlaw, Lexis, Heinonline or SSRN. But at least you...

Scholarship alert: "Without stigma: using the JURIST method to teach legal research and writing"

Posted on January 09, 2010
This one is authored by Professor Abigail Salisbury and can be found at 59 J. Legal Educ. 173 (2009). Like the article referenced below, Professor Salisbury's piece is not yet available online but at least you have the citation so...

The first draft is always bad

Posted on January 08, 2010
Since we already know that, I'm posting this more for the purpose of giving you a link to send to your students that shows them even the big guns struggle hard to turn out a polished draft. One quote offered...

When it comes to pay, firms move away from lockstep and consider instead associate's skills

Posted on January 08, 2010
That's the story being reported today in the online ABA Journal blog. The story notes that schools which place more emphasis on skills training provide a greater advantage to students in today's tough job market. Although that's hardly an earth-shattering...

Golden Gate U. Law School revamps 1L curriculum to emphasize legal skills

Posted on January 07, 2010
The blog "Best Practices in Legal Education" is reporting that Golden Gate has revamped the 1L curriculum to place more emphasis on the legal skills training. Among the changes unanimously approved by the faculty include increasing annual credit hours for...

new assistant director for U. Arizona

Posted on January 07, 2010
The University of Arizona has hired Susan Salmon as the new Assistant Director of Legal Writing. She's joining them with extensive practice and teaching experience already. We hear she also sings vocals in a local rock band, so perhaps we'll...

Exciting news, courtesy of Sarah

Posted on January 06, 2010
Exciting news, courtesy of Sarah Ricks: "Followers of the Supreme Court rely on SCOTUS blog to keep current on the business of the Supreme Court - what cert petitions the Court is considering in conference, what arguments the Court will...

ABA launches free search engine for law reviews and journals

Posted on January 06, 2010
The Law Librarian Blog reports: The ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center has launched a free search enginefor researching the free full-text of over 300 online law reviews and law journals, as well as document repositories hosting academic papers such as...

Legal Writing Dance Card

Posted on January 05, 2010
Here's the pdf of the Legal Writing Dance Card for the AALS Annual Meeting this week in New Orleans. Download Legal Writng Dance Card - New Orleans AALS (mew)

ALWD and LWI to Present Blackwell Award to Professor Steve Johansen at AALS

Posted on January 05, 2010
Please join ALWD and the LWI as they honor Professor Steve Johansen on Thursday, January 7, 2010, at a reception in the Riverbend 1 Room of the Marriott New Orleans at the Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. The reception...

The best 5 legal motions of 2009 by the editors of ATL

Posted on January 05, 2010
Here's a list of the top 5 legal motions from the past year compiled by the editors of Above the Law. If they don't work as amusing fodder for your students, maybe they'll be a good distraction for you come...

One law school finds success by saying "nuts" to USNWR rankings and instead preparing students for practice

Posted on January 05, 2010
To paraphrase a famous line from The Graduate: "I want to say one word to you. Just one word: Skills! [not 'plastics']." With the job market in shambles (some sectors might get worse still) and with more law schools in...

Books aren't dead yet - plus Kindle's affect on the first sale doctrine

Posted on January 04, 2010
Amazon's Jeff Bezos recently declared the imminent death of the book in light of eBook sales outpacing for the first time the sale of physical books during the holiday season that just concluded.[T]he physical book really has had a 500-year...

Is blogging legal scholarship?

Posted on January 04, 2010
Some who initially scoffed at the idea now concede that blogging can play a role in scholarly discourse. Here's Joe Hodnicki's excellent summary of the evolving debate: Way, way back in 2006, I attended the "Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming...

Legal Writing Dance Card for the AALS Annual Meeting

Posted on January 04, 2010
Here is a list of the legal writing events at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, which meets this week in New Orleans. PRINT THIS OUT or click here for a pdf that you can bring...

Books aren't dead yet - plus Kindle's effect on the first sale doctrine

AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans

Posted on January 03, 2010
The Association of American Law Schools holds its annual meeting this week in New Orleans. Here is the most recent newsletter for the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research. Download AALS Legal Writing Newsletter Fall 2009 FINAL The...

More about the influence of blogs on judicial decision-making

Posted on January 03, 2010
We'd previously blogged about lawyers attempting to influence the outcome of a case by blogging about it. Now comes this post from the blog TheRacetotheBottom.org suggesting that the under-40 demographics of most law clerks means they are more likely to...

AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans

Friday fun on New Year's Day - The Big Lebowski is the subject of serious academic study

Posted on January 01, 2010
Ok, so there's no literal connection to legal writing, as Walter Sobchak would say, but the "Friday fun" column entitles me to some latitude. If you're a fan of the Coen Brothers' film The Big Lebowski, then you'll really enjoy...

How to draft better jury instructions

Posted on January 01, 2010
This one comes to us from our good buddy Raymond Ward at the (new) legal writer blog: Jury instructions are too often so poorly written that even the most intelligent juror cannot understand them. That?s a serious problem. So how...

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