Legal Writing
Legal Writing Prof Blog 
By law professors Coleen M. Barger, Sue Liemer and Nancy Soonpaa
Post Frequency: 5.9/day Last Entry: November 20, 2009 at 09:58:00 Recent Entries: 1844
Go to Legal Writing Prof Blog, find other Legal Writing blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Search
Posts
Google Scholar enters the open access legal research game
Posted on November 20, 2009Both the Law Librarian and the Adjunct Law Prof blogs have been following the big story this week that cases and statutes are now searchable through Google Scholar. From the Official Google Blog: Currently, Google Scholar allows you to search...
Student who filed suit over his legal writing grade loses
Posted on November 20, 2009Brother Mitch Rubinstein over at the Adjunct Law Prof blog sent me this link to a story he's been following about a New York Law School student who sued his school because he believed his legal writing course should be...
How to get students to read
Posted on November 20, 2009The problem with law students may not be that they don't read (it's pretty hard to avoid it in law school although many still try), but reading comprehension. Thus, this article from Inside Higher Ed discussing techniques for getting students...
recent scholarship
Posted on November 19, 2009Thanks to LWI's cooperation with LSN, a division of SSRN, we have these reports on recent legal writing related scholarship, with each author's abstract: "Thorough Academic Legal Research Will Improve Your Papers" Student Lawyer, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 8-9,...
West makes textbook on persuasion available for Kindle
Posted on November 19, 2009This one comes to us from our good buddy Mitch Rubinstein of the Adjunct Law Prof Blog (which was recently named one of the 10 best blogs for legal news written "by and for law profs"). West is making 29...
AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research
Posted on November 19, 2009Here is a link to the Fall 2009 Newsletter of the Association of American Law Schools' Section of Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research. Download AALS Legal Writing Newsletter Fall 2009 FINAL (mew)
The words (and phrases) we love to hate
Posted on November 19, 2009In this recent column by Professor Stanley Fish in the NYT, the author catalogs several contemporary expressions that give us fits like "Your call is important to us" (yeah, right) or "Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed"...
Professionalism alert: Tell your students that when it comes to their resumes, don't "gild the lily."
Posted on November 19, 2009The National Law Journal reports that given how desperate some job seekers have become in this market, employers are seeing much more resume fraud. Here are some of the more egregious examples cited by the NLJ: ? Claiming to be...
job opening at Texas Tech
Posted on November 19, 2009Texas Tech University School of Law seeks applicants for an opening in its nationally ranked Legal Practice Program for the 2010-11 school year. The successful applicant will join a program that comprises four other full-time LP Professors, an adjunct professor,...
Scholarship alert: "Enhancing Law School Success: A Study of Goal Orientations, Academic Achievement and the Declining Self-Efficacy of our Law Students"
Posted on November 18, 2009Not legal writing per se, but authored by legal writing prof Leah M. Christensen and found at 33 Law & Psychol. Rev 57 (2009). From the introduction: I have long been interested in how the most successful law students learn....
Yet more on the future of commercial legal research databases versus open access
Posted on November 18, 2009This time it's the Law Librarian Blog founder and our good buddy Joe Hodnicki weighing in on the Bob Berring video. Joe thinks that competitive forces will inevitably challenge Wexis' market share and that some of the competition will come...
a rule is like . . .
Posted on November 18, 2009In a recent class, a student was confused about the difference between the rule and the rule explanation/proof, and a classmate offered this explanation: The rule is like describing the forest, and the rule explanation is like describing the trees....
You get what you pay for.
Posted on November 17, 2009Academics can argue about whether free or fee-based legal data bases are better, but when the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center surveyed practicing attorneys, here's what they found: "You Get What You Pay For: ?Overall, respondents are significantly more satisfied...
A resource to help educate law students about cost-effective alternatives to Wexis
Posted on November 17, 2009In this post from the Law Librarian Blog, Law Prof Blog founder Joe Hodnicki notes that law students can get hooked pretty easily on the free use of Westlaw and Lexis only to discover in their first jobs that the...
More thoughts on the Bob Berring "open access" versus pay-to-play legal research debate
Posted on November 17, 2009Here are some more thoughts from DePaul's Mark Giangrande via the Law Librarian Blog regarding yesterday's post here regarding the Bob Berring video: Bob Berring?s statement about Lexis and Westlaw being a better alternative to legal research than volunteer Internet...
The 2009 "word of the year"
Posted on November 17, 2009The envelop please . . . and the winner is: "unfriend!" That's according to the publisher of the New Oxford American Dictionary. "Unfriend" is a verb meaning "to remove someone as a ?friend? on a social networking site such as...
For typography nerds, life can be hell
Posted on November 17, 2009Today's NYT has a fun article entitled Mistakes in Typography Grate the Purists about spotting font faux pas all over town (and elsewhere). For example, did you know that the font on the ship pressure gauges in the movie Titanic...
kudos, Kristin!
Posted on November 16, 2009For four years now we've been using this blog to get the word out about the many accomplishments of legal writing professors. Well today we have the pleasure of announcing that Kristin Gerdy, legal research and writing professor at Brigham...
Fall Newsletter of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research
Posted on November 16, 2009The Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research has just published its Fall 2009 Newsletter. Click here to download a copy of the new Fall 2009 Newsletter. It is 18 pages long, filled with what...
Professor Bob Berring on whether open access will threaten Wexis legal research dominance
Posted on November 16, 2009Our good friends over at the Law Librarian Blog have been posting for several weeks on the now famous video interview with Professor Bob Berring opining about whether open access legal research databases will supplant the commercial players, primarily Westlaw,...
Chicago judge takes lawyers to task for submitting brief "dripping with sarcasm"
Posted on November 16, 2009Both Above the Law and the National Law Journal recently reported on an incident in which Illinois Judge Diane Cannon castigated two Sidley Austin lawyers for submitting a brief in connection with a motion to quash a subpoena that the...
Empire State Legal Writing Conference -- call for proposals
Posted on November 15, 2009The First Annual Empire State Legal Writing Conference will be held at Hofstra University School of Law on May 14, 2010. The planning committee invites proposals for presentations at this conference on a broad range of topics relevant to those...
it takes a village
Posted on November 15, 2009Professor Melissa Marlow, at Southern Illinois University, has published an article for everyone involved in legal education. She explains how It Takes A Village to Solve the Problems in Legal Education: Every Faculty Member's Role in Academic Support, which you...
A great website for looking up synonyms, antonyms and definitions
Posted on November 15, 2009Maybe many of you already use an online resource like this, but it was news to me when I stumbled across it over the weekend. It's a website called synonyms.com that provides the user with a definition (although it doesn't...
client-centered legal writing
Posted on November 13, 2009Jason Cohen, at Rutgers, has written an article entitled Know Your Client: Maximizing Advocacy by Incorporating Client-Centered Principles into Legal Writing Rhetoric Practice. Here's how he describes his shift in focus, in his abstract: "This article seeks to slightly shift...
Happy Belated Birthday to . . . US!!!
Posted on November 12, 2009The Legal Writing Prof Blog started November 5, 2005. We've had more than 300,000 visitors in the past five years and more than 450,000 page views. Most of our readers are in the United States, but we have readers all...
LWI "Nuts and Bolts" Workshops on December 4 for New Writing Teachers and Adjunct Faculty Who Teach Legal Writing
Posted on November 12, 2009The Legal Writing Institute is holding "Nuts and Bolts" Workshops on December 4, 2009 in Chicago (at The John Marshall Law School) and in New York Ciity (at the Manhattan Campus of St. John's University School of Law). Click here...
for Veterans Day
Posted on November 11, 2009In Flanders Fields In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short...
chair in Law in Advocacy (corrected)
Posted on November 11, 2009The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law is seeking nominations and applications for its Douglas Stripp Distinguished Professorship of Law in Advocacy. For this position, candidates should have a J.D. degree (or equivalent) from an accredited law school, experience...
add an E to your IRAC
Posted on November 10, 2009"Whether you're answering exam questions or arguing on your client's behalf, explaining the rule of law can help get your point across to your professor or the judge." Thus says our blog co-author Mark Wojcik in his practical article on...
Rocky Mountain conference
Posted on November 10, 2009The web site is now available for the Rocky Mountain Regional Legal Writing Conference. The conference will take place March 19 & 20, 2010, in Tucson, Arizona. On the website, you can already find information about registration, the call for...
Teaching Writing for Social Justice
Posted on November 09, 2009The SUNY Council on Writing has issued a call for proposals, for its annual conference, on the topic of Teaching Writing for Social Justice, taking place March 26 & 27, 2010, in Plattsburgh, New York. The keynote speaker, Dr. Nancy...
ALWD scholarship forum at Marquette
Posted on November 09, 2009The following report was delayed only due to an unsuccessful effort to obtain photos: On October 9, Marquette Law School hosted an ALWD Scholars? Forum before the Central States Regional Conference. The forum was an all-day event where legal writing....
calling all Yankee LRW profs
Posted on November 06, 2009If you plan to attend, it's time to sign up for the next conference of the New England Consortium of Legal Writing Teachers. The conference will take place at Western New England College School of Law, in Springfield, Massachusetts, on...
preparing for oral argument
Posted on November 05, 2009In an interview in the Chicago Tribune, a 4th year associate explains how he's preparing for his first oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. It's worth forwarding to law students preparing for 1L oral arguments or moot court competitions....
tenure-track job opening at University of Montana
Posted on November 05, 2009The University of Montana School of Law anticipates hiring a full-time tenure-track professor beginning in the 2010-2011 academic year to teach in the area of legal writing, research and related courses with additional responsibilities in academic success...
job opening at CUNY
Posted on November 05, 2009The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law seeks applicants with a demonstrated commitment to its social justice mission for a full-time teaching position. The Law School Instructor hired in this cycle will primarily teach First-Year Lawyering Seminar,...
quotable
Posted on November 04, 2009"I like the exact word, and clarity of statement, and here and there a touch of good grammar for picturesqueness." ~ Mark Twain, 1924 (spl)
writing centers workshop
Posted on November 03, 2009Law schools with PhD writing specialists on staff in particular may be interested next year's joint conference of the International Writing Centers Association and the National Conference on Peer Tutoring, to be held on November 4 - 6, 2010, in...
The Last Lawyer
Posted on November 02, 2009That intriguing title graces the cover of a new book about North Carolina attorney Ken Rose. The new book chronicles Rose?s decade-long defense of Bo Jones, a North Carolina farmhand convicted of a 1987 murder. It?s the most frustrating case...
What the research tells us about the path to writing expertise
Posted on November 02, 2009Here is the second installmentin an occasional column Inside Higher Ed is running on how to become a competent academic writer. We blogged about the first installment here which pertained to the myths about the process of scholarly writing and...
job opening in North Carolina
Posted on November 01, 2009The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law is inviting applications for a full-time clinical faculty appointment for a director of its first-year legal research and writing program (Research, Reasoning, Writing, and Advocacy) beginning in the 2010-11...
job opening in Kansas
Posted on October 30, 2009The University of Kansas School of Law seeks applicants for a faculty position in its first-year Lawyering Skills Program. Lawyering Skills is a full-year program which includes a two-credit course in the fall and a three-credit course in the spring....
job openings at Hofstra
Posted on October 29, 2009Hofstra University School of Law invites applications for one or more positions as Professor of Legal Writing and Research. This is full-time faculty position with a renewable contract potentially leading to a long-term renewable contract. Hofstra?s Professors of Legal Writing...
Professionalism alert: How not to behave in court
Posted on October 29, 2009Here are two stories, one from Texas and the other from Pennsylvania, that are topically related, if not geographically. The first of these comes from our good buddy Professor Mitch Rubinstein at the Adjunct Law Prof blog. He tells us...
job opening in Seattle
Posted on October 28, 2009This is the time of year that we're getting word of a lot of job openings for legal writing teaching jobs that start next August. As we have time, we'll post the announcements here. Seattle University School of Law is...
Scholarship alert: "Moving from First to Final Draft: Offering Autonomy-Supportive Choices to Motivate Students to Internalize the Writing Process"
Posted on October 27, 2009This one showed up in the 'ol scholarship dude's mailbox this a.m. so I wanted to pass it along to all of you. The article is by Professor Carol Wallinger of Rutgers-Camden and can found at 54 Loy. L. Rev....
Does student comprehension differ depending on whether they're reading on the screen or the printed page?
Posted on October 26, 2009Researchers are just beginning to understand how the digital world affects both the mechanics of how we read and whether comprehension is dependant on the medium. Here are a couple of stories that report on some of this early research....
Here's another website you might be interested in - "Grammar Girl"
Posted on October 26, 2009Grammar Girl is blog that "provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help...
kudos, Emory!
Posted on October 26, 2009We can now add the legal writing faculty at Emory University to the growing list of legal writing professors who can vote at their law school faculty meetings. Congratulations! hat tip: Anne Rector (spl)
Friday Fun - Are you a ROM Brain?
Posted on October 23, 2009This one comes to us from Chris Wren, a legal research god who is almost singlehandedly responsible for the developing the theory and practice of process-oriented legal research instruction we all use today. But I digress. This is a fun...
Mel Weresh, legal writing superstar!
Posted on October 23, 2009Prof. Johnathan Edwards at Drake sent news of his colleague's trifecta: Below is the link to the University?s press release with photos of Mel Weresh with the 2009 Warren E. Burger Writing Competition Prize from the American Inns of Court:...
Good handout explaining passive voice and how to avoid it.
Posted on October 22, 2009This one comes to us from the U. of North Carolina Writing Center. It's published pursuant to an open source license agreement meaning you are free to use it in your classroom provided you comply with these conditions. Here's the...
Harsh language in brief becomes harsh toke for lawyer who wrote it resulting in jail time
Posted on October 22, 2009An attorney who harshly criticized a judge and other officials in a Missouri court filing was found to be in contempt of court and sentenced to 120 days in the hoosegow. According to the Associated Press: A Douglas County jury...
Trends in teaching continue to focus on group work, peer-editing and multiple drafts
Posted on October 22, 2009Although my own experience is that students don't always like group work or peer-feedback exercises (the former because of the "free-rider" effect and the latter because they haven't yet developed the judgment that enables them to evaluate another's work), their...
A new tool in the war on student plagiarism
Posted on October 22, 2009Our good buddy Professor Mitchell Rubinstein over at the Adjunct Law Prof Blog alerted me to this new anti-plagiarism service called PlagiarismScanner.com that, for a fee, will search the web to determine if your student's paper borrowed too heavily from...
New England legal writing consortium
Posted on October 22, 2009The next regional conference of the New England Consortium of Legal Writing Teachers is set for December 7, 2009. This conference will be held at the Western New England College Law School, in Springfield, Massachusetts. All the registration and program...
LWI Workshops on December 4 for New Writing Faculty and Adjunct Professors Who Teach Writing
Posted on October 22, 2009Here's the latest on the workshops that the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) is holding on December 4, 2009 in New York City and Chicago for New Legal Writing Faculty and for Adjunct Professors Who Teach Legal Writing. You can click...
Laurel Currie Oates Selected for ALWD Award
Posted on October 21, 2009The Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) announced that it is awarding the 2009 Marjorie Rombauer Award to Laurel Currie Oates, of Seattle University School of Law. . The award is named for Marjorie Rombauer, one of the founders of...
How one effective demand letter helped consumer get big refund from Amazon.com
Posted on October 21, 2009A website called the Consumerist has republished a demand letter sent by Paul Gowder, who is identified as a "law school grad," to Amazon.com seeking a refund after his $400.00 Kindle broke. A video used to advertise Kindles apparently makes...
Today is "National Day of Writing"
Posted on October 20, 2009You read that correctly - The National Council of Teachers of English ("NCTE") has declared October 20, 2009 as "National Day of Writing" in recognition of "the remarkable variety of writing we engage in and [to] help make writers from...
Advice for students - "How to be a great law clerk"
Posted on October 19, 2009This article appears in the ABA's Summer 2009 Journal of the Section of Litigation which is available to members online here but most likely will be in many law school libraries should non-members be interested in taking a gander. The...
Writing advice for profs - get into a regular routine
Posted on October 19, 2009Much of the writing advice we blog about here is directed towards students. For a change of pace, here's some advice courtesy of Inside Higher Ed that. although directed at Ph.D candidates struggling to finish their dissertations, applies equally well...
congratulations, Oregon!
Posted on October 17, 2009Suzanne Rowe, legal writing director at the University of Oregon, reports that their faculty just voted to add a legal writing position to their faculty. Given the state of public university budgets, this is quite an extraordinary feat. When a...
Scholarship alert: "Law firm legal research requirements for new attorneys"
Posted on October 16, 2009We haven't had an S.A. in a while so let's break the silence with this article from Patrick Meyer an Associate Library Director and Adjunct Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. Law Firm Legal Research Requirements...
a gold mine for teaching legal drafting and transactional skills
Posted on October 15, 2009Have you started thinking about next spring's courses? Is your school looking for ideas for incorporating more skills education into the legal education curriculum? Whether you teach (or want to teach) an entire course on drafting, or teach drafting in...
Top 10 mistakes when writing an appellate brief
Posted on October 15, 2009The Adjunct Law Prof Blog has reprinted a list compiled in the August, 31, 2009 edition of the New York Law Journal (free registration required) that includes the following: 1. Failing to take full advantage of respondents' and reply briefs....
Join the Small Group Discussion on Legal Writing at the AALS Hiring Conference
Posted on October 15, 2009The Association of American Law School holds an annual recruiting conference that is familiar to many of us as ?the meat market.? Each year there is a small group discussion for candidates who are interested in legal research and writing....
When writing gaffes are the icing on the cake
Posted on October 15, 2009While not directly related to legal writing, let's call this post "Friday Fun - one day early." It's a New York Times story about a blog called Cake Wrecks that chronicles confections that "go horribly, hilariously wrong." Ace of Cakes...
newest issue of "Thanks & Congrats" newsletter
Posted on October 14, 2009University of Arkansas Professor (and LWI listserv chair) Kathy Sampson has compiled the second of the Legal Writing Institute's new electronic newsletter, "Thanks & Congrats!" While the listserv remains an important means of communication within the legal writing community, the...
Mark Wojcik Nominated as Chair-Elect of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research; Kathleen Vinson Nominated as Secretary
Posted on October 14, 2009The Nominating Committee of the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research announced the nominees for the 2010 Section offices of Secretary and Chair-elect. Mark E. Wojcik (The John Marshall Law School--Chicago) is the nominee...
Updated Information on the December 4 LWI Workshops for Adjunct Professors and New Legal Writing Professors
Posted on October 14, 2009The Legal Writing Institute is holding workshops in Chicago and New York on Friday, December 4, 2009 for adjunct professors and new legal writing professors. The revised version of the brochure now includes hotel information -- there is strong interest...
"Any time" versus "Anytime"
Posted on October 14, 2009So what's the difference? Lynn Gaertner-Johnston at the Business Writing blog provides an answer: Do you wonder about the word anytime at any time? Anytime I stop to think about a word before I write it, wondering whether it is...
Legal Writing Prof Blog wins most improved player award
Posted on October 13, 2009I received a nice email from Law Professor Blog Network overlord Professor Paul Caron telling me that this blog had seen the greatest percentage increase in traffic over the past 12 months of any of the top 35 blogs edited...
facing Facebook (& Twitter)
Posted on October 12, 2009Law professors of a certain age may well think of Facebook as inconsequential to legal education, but at the Central States LRW conference, a few presenters disabused us of that notion. Sonia Green (at John Marshall) and Tracy McGaugh (at...
Congratulations to Marquette University School of Law
Posted on October 11, 2009Marquette University School of Law in Milwaukee hosted an ALWD Scholars' Forum the past Friday and the Central Region Legal Writing Conference on Friday evening and Saturday. I attended only the end of the ALWD forum, which was targeted to...
Using Pending U.S. Supreme Court Cases as a First Year Writing Assignment
Posted on October 10, 2009Juli Campagna and Mary Nagel (both of The John Marshall Law School in Chicago) presented at the Central Region Legal Writing Conference on how they use pending U.S. Supreme Court cases as a writing assignment for first-year students. Many professors....
Richard Neumann at the Central Region Legal Writing Conference
Posted on October 10, 2009Richard Neumann (Hofstra) presented on "The Six Things You Can Do in a Contract." As an exercise, he walked through the Facebook agreement that users agree to when they sign up for Facebook. You can easily imagine that our law...
More International Experiences from the Central Region Legal Writing Conference
Posted on October 10, 2009Ann Sinsheimer and Teresa Brostoff (University of Pittsburgh School of Law) presented at the Central Region Legal Writing Conference on their international teaching experiences, including experiences in Bahrain, Ethiopia, Iceland, Oman, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates...
Mimi Samuel, Laurel Oates, and Promoting the Rule of Law in Afghanistan
Posted on October 10, 2009Mimi Samuel and Laurel Oates (Seattle University School of Law) went to Afghanistan in January 2009 for the Afghanistan Rule of Law Project organized by USAID. Mimi shared their experiences today at the Central Region Legal Writing Conference, explaining the...
Central Region Legal Writing Conference
Posted on October 10, 2009The 10th Annual Central Region Legal Writing Conference started last night at the Marquette University School of Law in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There are more than 100 people here, and the conference is going quite well. In the morning session, Professor...
Joe Kimble Wins AALS Legal Writing Section Award
Posted on September 30, 2009The Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research has just announced the winner of its annual award. Section Chair Rachel Croskery-Roberts announced today that the recipient of the 2010 AALS Section Award will be Professor...
binding briefs
Posted on September 30, 2009There are many methods of binding a brief, but not all meet with the approval of the court. Some courts allow stapling, but others do not, worrying about judges' and clerks' pricked fingertips, the result of handling briefs that are...
job opening at North Carolina
Posted on September 30, 2009The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Law invites applications for a full-time faculty position beginning Fall 2010 in the area of Academic Support/Legal Writing. Beginning and experienced teachers will be considered. Scholarship in areas related to...
California Judge Laments That There Is No Rehab Clinic for Acronym Addicts
Posted on September 30, 2009It seems that judges have had enough of bad writing, improper punctuation, dangerous staples, and now overuse of acronyms. An appellate court justice in California wrote a 27-page opinion that criticized lawyers for "descending into an alphabet soup of jargon-based...
So simple a caveman could do it - but will you?
Posted on September 30, 2009Professor Mitch Rubinstein at the Adjunct Law Prof Blog has posted this impotant piece of advice about the desireability of professor's insurance. As he points out, profs are probably already covered by their employers for most claims - like defamation...
Scholarship alert: "The Cartography of Legal Inquiry"
Posted on September 30, 2009Washburn Professor Tonya Kowalski is on fire lately. As we reported a few days ago, she recently published this article. Now she's got a second article in the chute and ready to go. This was, called "The Cartography of Legal...
job opening at Marquette Law School
Posted on September 29, 2009Marquette University Law School (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) invites applications for a position as a full-time, non-tenure track legal writing and research faculty member beginning in either the 2010 Spring semester or in the Fall 2010 semester. Candidates should have distinguished records...
job openings at New York Law School
Posted on September 28, 2009New York Law School is beginning a new first-year Legal Writing/Skills Program to be taught by full-time faculty. The Law School plans to hire three full-time professors for the 2010-2011 school year to collaborate on the phase-in of a first-year,...
history of The Bluebook
Posted on September 28, 2009Some legal writing profs have been reminiscing about the days when they learned to use The Bluebook--back when that wasn't its official name, back when it was shorter, back when it wasn't even blue. For you young'uns who want to...
"On Language" columnist William Safire died Sunday at 79
Posted on September 28, 2009A Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, author, political pundit and college drop-out (who was damn proud of it), many readers of this blog may know his work best from his syndicated New York Times column called "On Language." From the NYT...
becoming a legal writing professor
Posted on September 27, 2009I recently received an e-mail from a reader of this blog, inquiring how one goes about becoming a legal writing professor. My response was to highly recommend she read two relevant articles, and then she would know what more specific...
May my clothes please the court . . .
Posted on September 27, 2009If you are appearing before U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis (E.D.N.Y.) or Queens County housing court Judge Anne Katz (and probably a lot of other judges), you need to dress appropriately. A lawyer who wore jeans and a baseball cap...
driven to writing poems
Posted on September 25, 2009Like many of us, legal writing professsor John Murphy is in the middle of grading 1L memos. Unlike the rest of us, he was inspired to write a poem: Ode to the Author of Memo No. 36. Your memo is...
Comment alert: "Bringing life to legal writing: how to use literary journalism in capital litigation"
Posted on September 25, 2009The above comment by UMKC law student Kate Paulman appears in 77 UMKC L. Rev. 1147 (2009). From the abstract: Elements and Guidelines of Literary Journalism What will make Literary Journalism an easy style for capital litigators to employ is...
Update on legal research developments
Posted on September 25, 2009If you're not already subscribing to the Law Librarian Blog as part of your daily feed, you should be. Each day usually brings at least one story highly relevant to legal writing profs. Here's a few posts from the last...
Remember to mind your P's, Q's and . . . staples
Posted on September 25, 2009After the story earlier this week about a federal district court judge in Florida who dismissed the plaintiff's filing because it was so "riddled with unprofessional grammatical and typographical errors that nearly render the entire Motion incomprehensible," this next story...
Global Legal Skills Conference
Posted on September 25, 2009Please click here for more information about the call for papers for the Global Legal Skills Conference in Monterrey, Mexico, February 25-27, 2010. (mew)
one reason why writing professors should write
Posted on September 24, 2009At some U.S. law schools, legal writing professors receive no support to pursue scholarship, neither time nor compensation nor encouragement. Of course it makes little sense to hire a professional to teach writing and then make it almost impossible for...
Scholarship alert part II: "The Forgotten Sovereigns"
Posted on September 23, 2009Professor Tonya Kowalski of Washburn has just had the above article accepted for publication in Volume 36 of the Florida State Law Review. At present, it's available here on SSRN. We thought you might be interested because her topic is...
Scholarship alert: "Judging by the Numbers: An Empirical Study of the Power of Story"
Posted on September 23, 2009A new article by Professor Ken Chestek is available on SSRN here. From the abstract: The recent debate about whether 'empathy' is a desirable trait in Supreme Court Justices begs a more fundamental question: are appellate court judges in fact...
Follow-up to the "Spell-Checker's Poem"
Posted on September 22, 2009Thanks to Professor Mary Beth Beazley for alerting us to this website which identifies the author of the "Spell-Checker's Poem" posted yesterday, below, explains the back-story and provides the unabridged version. For your reading pleasure, here's the poem in full:...
Fascinating new book on history of writing implements and technology's impact on how we write today
Posted on September 21, 2009I bet you didn't know that pencils, like computers, where originally invented for purposes other than writing. Did you also know that almost every new writing technology - from the first printing press to typewriters - was initially met with...
Ode to spell-check - the spell-checker's poem
Posted on September 21, 2009Some of you may enjoy this (of course, others may not): Spell Checker Poem I have a spelling checker, It came with my pea see; It plainly marks four my revue Mistakes I cannot sea. I've run this poem threw...
Friday Fun -- Westlaw Shows How to Prevent the Abuse of Stress Toys
Posted on September 18, 2009A two-minute video from Westlaw that demonstrates how using Westlaw can prevent the abuse of stress toys. Hat tip to David Austin at California Western School of Law (mew)
Global Legal Skills Conference
Posted on September 18, 2009Another reminder that the Call for Papers for the Fifth Global Legal Skills Conference is fast approaching! Proposals are due next Friday, September 25, for presentations at the conference in Monterrey Mexico, February 25-27, 2010. Here is a short video...
Julia Child and Legal Writing
Posted on September 18, 2009After watching the movie Julie & Julia, Melissa Greipp of Marquette University Law School posted some inspired thoughts on her law school's blog in a post called "Mastering the Art of Legal Writing." Here's an excerpt: Watching the movie reminded...
When to use the phrase "in other words"
Posted on September 17, 2009Never. That's according to the blog AdamsDrafting in which master contract consultant Ken Adams opines that if you're using the phrase "in other words" in a document, it's a red flag that you haven't explained the point clearly the first...
director opening at Widener-Harrisburg
Posted on September 17, 2009Widener University School of Law?s Harrisburg Campus is looking for a director of its Legal Methods Program, a tenure-track position. Applicants must have experience teaching in a legal writing/analysis program; the school will give preference to applicants with leadership experience...
Justice Scalia offers some advice on effective advocacy
Posted on September 16, 2009The online ABA Journal is reporting, via the website Politico, that Justice Scalia, during a book signing event, offered the following advice to attorneys (and future attorneys) about how to be better advocates: "Don't beat a dead horse," the justice...
more photos and coverage of Southeast Regional LW conference
Posted on September 15, 2009Many thanks to guest blogger Lance Long, who captured these images and thoughts on the recent Southeast Regional Legal Writing Conference, held Sept. 11-12, 2009, at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida: Doug Godfrey of Chicago-Kent led a...
director opening at John Marshall, Chicago
Posted on September 14, 2009The 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 2010-11 academic year. The Lawyering Skills Program is a nationally-ranked legal research...
A writing blog and website you may be interested in: "Practicing Writing"
Posted on September 14, 2009Although it's not legal writing, you or your students may still find it helpful. The blog is called Practicing Writing by Erika Dreifus, a "prolific writer, book reviewer and essayist." The blog covers updates on writing and publishing opportunities [non-academic]...
10 Must-See Movies for Law Students
Posted on September 13, 2009If you made a list of ten movies that law students "must see," which movies would be on that list? Make a few notes now and then see how your list compares to this one. Hat tip to Amber Johnson...
call for papers: Law & Semiotics
Posted on September 13, 2009The 9th annual International Roundtable for Semiotics of Law will take place next September, 3-6, 2010, in Poznan, Poland. Proposals of 300 words (in English or French) should be sent via e-mail by May 1, 2010, to bartwoj@op.pl, karolinacern@yahoo.com, juchaczp@aum...
Scholarship alert: "Researching Across the Curriculum: the Road Must Continue Beyond the First Year"
Posted on September 13, 2009By Stetson's Professor Brooke Bowman. It can be found at 61 Okla. L. Rev. 503-559 (2009) although when I tried that cite on both Lexis and Westlaw, neither service had it. Instead, you can access it through Professor Bowman's SSRN...
more highlights from Southeast Regional conference
Posted on September 13, 2009Guest blogger Lance Long was a busy man at this weekend's conference, snapping photos, helping to host, AND making a very informative presentation on using media clips in the classroom. Here are more of Lance's photos and comments from the...
highlights from the 2009 Southeast Regional LW Conference
Posted on September 13, 2009I asked Lance Long to be a guest blogger for this weekend's Southeast Regional Legal Writing Conference hosted by Stetson University College of Law. Lance contributes both contributes pictures and commentary. Thanks, Lance!: Conference attendees were greeted by the friendly...
Beazley kicks off Southeast Regional conference
Posted on September 12, 2009Live blogging the Southeast Regional Legal Writing Conference from not-sunny Gulfport, Florida . . . . It's raining, but we don't care. We are listening to plenary speaker Prof. Mary Beth Beazley (Ohio State) sharing what she learned from her...
job opening at U of Arizona
Posted on September 11, 2009The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law invites applications for the position of Assistant Director of Legal Writing, to begin either January 2010 or summer 2010. The Assistant Director will teach in and assist in the administration....
job opening at UNLV Boyd School of Law
Posted on September 11, 2009The William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, invites applications for the position of Legal Writing Professor, to begin August 1, 2010. Responsibilities include teaching in a three semester program that enjoys strong faculty...
job opening at Elon (North Carolina)
Posted on September 11, 2009Elon University School of Law seeks one or more professors with a commitment to legal writing teaching to join its tenure-track faculty. Successful applicants will teach two courses per semester, one of which will be the first-year Legal Writing course...
Northwest regional conference, report #7
Posted on September 11, 2009In the final session, we enjoyed a variety of presentations on programs and curricula. Cheryl Beckett of Gonzaga discussed how an increase in status for LP profs leads to an increase in workload (e.g., committee assignments) and then an increase...
Northwest regional conference, report #6
Posted on September 11, 2009Saturday afternoon continued with a session on the theme of "transitions." Connie Krontz of Seattle University talked about helping students transition from fact-based to principle-based analogies. Using the example of a misconduct case, she demonstrated how students could be helped...
Follow-up: Law firms follow the Marines into the "cone of silence"
Posted on September 10, 2009I'd previously blogged here about a story that the USMC (as well as some NFL teams) were banning the use of social media among soldiers (and players, respectively) because, among other reasons, of the security risks such forms of communication...
"I know good writing when I see it yet I can't explain to students how to do it"
Posted on September 10, 2009That's the premise of this essay entitled "Feeling Fake in the Classroom" from the Chronicle of Higher Ed in which an undergraduate English instructor admits that the ability to recognize "bad" student writing from "good" doesn't always mean one can....
Joe Kimble Fixes the Federal Rules of Evidence
Posted on September 10, 2009Professor Joseph Kimble of the Thomas Cooley School of Law was the principal drafter of the "restyled" Federal Rules of Evidence that were published for comment in August. Joe is now doing a series of articles about those changes. These...
Northwest regional conference, report #5
Posted on September 09, 2009After lunch, I started the afternoon session with a session that showcased several techniques and websites that offer fun, non-law-related ways to teach legal writing concepts. I used museum art postcards as the basis of an analysis exercise and shared...
Newsletter for the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research
Posted on September 09, 2009Here's a reminder that you can find past issues of the Section Newsletter for the Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research by visiting the section's webpage on the AALS website. Click here for a...
Professor Stanley Fish continues to advocate for good writing instruction
Posted on September 08, 2009In yesterday's Opinion section of the NYT, several leading educators were asked to offer advice to college freshmen who are beginning classes around the country this week. Professor Stanley Fish, who we'd just previously blogged about, has this to say...
More writing advice - this time for academics
Posted on September 08, 2009Academic writing is often among the most impenetrable prose ever inked. Now comes to the rescue this column from the Chronicle of Higher Ed offering advice on how to prune that prose to a fare-thee-well: Academics are not embarrassed by...
Legal Educator Blog Census - Version 2.0
Posted on September 08, 2009Professor Colin Miller at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago has revised his Legal Educator Blog Census and posted the 2.0 version (which he says is the final version for this year). Here is the portion covering bloggers at...
Labor Day quotable
Posted on September 07, 2009"Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as idleness." - Thomas Carlyle (spl)
Legal Writing Institute 101 -- What it is and how to join
Posted on September 06, 2009The Legal Writing Institute is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to exchange ideas about legal writing and to provide a forum for research and scholarship about legal writing and legal analysis. The Institute is currently housed at Mercer University...
Northwest regional conference, report #4
Posted on September 06, 2009The final session before lunch focused on New Takes on Tried and True Teaching Ideas. Mark DeForrest of Gonzaga discussed using Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham City Jail to teach persuasive writing techniques. He described the letter as...
Northwest regional conference, report #3
Posted on September 05, 2009So after our carbohydrate-laden break of Voodoo doughnuts, we settled in for an hour of presentations on Designing Legal Writing Assignments. Kristen Martin of Whittier talked about environmental justice and legal writing assignments; she suggested that to counter the "moral...
To create an effective PowerPoint presentation, remember less is more
Posted on September 04, 2009Here are some helpful tips on creating effective PowerPoint slides courtesy of the Business Writing Blog: Less data--just a few powerful pieces--is more compelling than heaps of numbers. Ten slides are more memorable than fifty. One clear idea moves an...
Video about the words we love to hate
Posted on September 04, 2009Let's file this one under "Friday diversion," The long weekend is upon us, so sit back, put your feet up and take a break from class prep., grading, what-have-you and enjoy a tasty video courtesy of CNN. Embedded video from...
A reading revolution - the reading workshop
Posted on September 04, 2009In case you missed it, this recent article from the NYT talks about a supposed "revolution" (ed note: you can add "revolution" to the list of words I'm beginning to hate - see below) taking place in secondary school education...
ALSCH conference -- call for proposals
Posted on September 04, 2009Call for Participation: 13th Annual ASLCH Conference March 19-20, 2010 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities is an organization of scholars engaged in interdisciplinary, humanistic legal scholarship...
writing centers conference -- call for proposals
Posted on September 04, 2009East Central Writing Centers Association Conference 2010 Converging At the Vanishing Point April 8-10, 2010 http://writing.msu.edu/ecwca Session Formats Presentations: Single presentations will be 15-20 minutes in length. If you submit your proposal alone you will be placed with like presentations...
Beware the foibles of online citators
Posted on September 03, 2009Here's a great post by David Walker at the Law Librarian Blog about reliability problems with online citators including Westlaw's Keycite, Lexis' Shepards as well as open source upstarts like Precydent (previously discussed here). I'll let you read David's very...
Great online resource for writing style guides
Posted on September 03, 2009Thanks to our good buddy Raymond Ward at the (new) legal writer for alerting us to this online list of writing style guides courtesy of DailyWritingTips.com. It's your one-stop resource that covers everything from Chicago Manuel of Style to the...
New Blog on Trade and Human Rights
Posted on September 03, 2009Stephen Powell (Director of the International Trade Law Program at the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law) has started a new blog on trade and human rights. Click here to visit Stephen Powell on Just Trade. (mew)
Hillary Burgess: Dude, Check it Out!
Posted on September 03, 2009Hil lary Burgess (pictured at left) has a guest post on the Law School Academic Support Blog on the subject of what to think when law professors say "dude!" Legal writing folk mentioned in her post include Traci McGaugh and...
Northwest regional conference, report #1
Posted on September 02, 2009This past weekend's Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference was a great success, in no small part due to the many excellent presentations (as well, of course, to the hard work by the sponsoring schools, University of Oregon and Lewis &...
free webinar on LRW outcomes and assessments
Posted on September 02, 2009Professor Kirsten Davis, director of the legal writing program at Stetson University College of Law, has announced that school's innovative series of "virtual legal writing conferences," presented as free webinars for law school faculty. The first in the series addresses...
Professor Stanley Fish on writing - "don't call it a writing course unless you're actually teaching them how to write"
Posted on September 02, 2009On his New York Times blog, FIU Law Professor Stanley Fish criticizes college writing courses that focus on substantive topics - "novels, movies, TV shows and . . . a variety of hot-button issues [like] racism, sexism, immigration, globalization" -...
Northwest regional conference, report #2
Posted on September 02, 2009Our first break featured treats from Portland's Voodoo Doughnuts. (njs)
Pittsburgh regional LRW conference
Posted on September 01, 2009The First ?Colonial Frontier? Legal Writing Conference -- December 5, 2009 host: The Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania co-sponsors: The University of Pittsburgh School of Law West Virginia University College of Law theme: Engendering Hope in the Legal...
More on whether the internet is producing better writers
Posted on September 01, 2009We'd previously reported on a longitudinal study being done by Stanford that hopes to shed light on whether social networking and other forms of e-composition are producing a generation of "better" or "less" skilled writers than their predecessors. While we're...
job opening at South Texas (Houston, TX)
Posted on August 31, 2009South Texas College of Law invites applications for one or more full-time, tenure-track positions beginning in the 2010-2011 academic year. In particular, South Texas is seeking to hire two individuals to teach Legal Research and Writing. The Legal Writing program...
Jessup Moot Court Rules for 2010 Now Available
Posted on August 29, 2009Many readers of this blog are coaches of moot court teams competing in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. The International Law Students Association (ILSA) has just released the rules for the 2010 Jessup Competition. Among the...
the narrative of argument
Posted on August 29, 2009Linda Edwards has written a very thoughtful article on Once Upon a Time in Law: Myth, Metaphor, and Authority, which you can get to just by clicking on the title here. Here's her abstract: "We have long accepted the role...
illustrious punctuation
Posted on August 28, 2009By now most readers of this blog likely have read Lynne Truss's book on punctuation, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. And many of you have read and contributed to reviews of the book, with varying opinions about it. Now comes the...
thriving in law school
Posted on August 28, 2009Professor Susannah Pollvogt has started a blog about Thriving in Law School, i.e., succeeding academically while maintaining some balance in life. Check it out (scroll down to the cartoons), leave a comment, and then send your students there. (spl)
New Edition of Illinois Legal Research
Posted on August 27, 2009The second edition of Illinois Legal Research is now available! The second edition of Illinois Legal Research shows how to find and stay current with Illinois cases, statutes, regulations, and local court rules. Focusing on state materials, it can be...
job opening at Missouri-Columbia
Posted on August 26, 2009The University of Missouri School of Law invites applications for a full-time, non-tenure track, nine-month appointment in its Legal Research and Writing program for the 2010-2011 academic year. The successful applicant will be responsible for teaching two sections of Legal...
more grammar resources--Grammar Girl podcasts
Posted on August 26, 2009Speaking of grammar lessons, another great free resource is the subscribable podcasts by Grammar Girl (alter ego for Mignon Fogerty), motto "To Infinitives and Beyond!" (You can also become a Facebook fan of Grammar Girl. If you want to spend...
updated CALI lesson on grammar, punctuation
Posted on August 26, 2009If you recommend CALI (Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) tutorials to your students--or require them-- you will be glad to learn that its Punctuation and Grammar Bascs lesson (authored by University of Texas prof and legal writing blogger Wayne Schiess) has recently...
Call for Papers - Global Legal Skills Conference V - Monterrey Mexico, Feb. 25-27, 2010
Posted on August 26, 2009Click here for the call for papers for the fifth Global Legal Skills Conference, which will be held February 25-27, 2010 in Mexico at the Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey. Download Global_Legal_Skills_Conference_V_CFP Click here for more information and a...
Second discimination suit this year by a legal writing prof
Posted on August 25, 2009Back in May, we reported on the case of a St. Mary's School of Law LRW prof who was suing the Texas school for alleged age and gender discrimination when it failed to renew her contract. Now comes this story...
job opening at La Verne (Ontario, California)
Posted on August 24, 2009The University of La Verne College of Law invites applications for one or more full-time, tenure-track positions in its directed legal writing program, beginning in the 2010-2011 academic year. The school may have interests in other areas, including property, though...
job opening at Charleston
Posted on August 24, 2009Charleston School of Law invites applications for a tenure-track Director of Legal Research and Writing position, beginning in the 2010 academic year. The Director is responsible for administering the first-year legal writing program, and reports to the Associate Dean for...
LWI publishes monograph on art of critiquing
Posted on August 22, 2009A new monograph series by the Legal Writing Institute collects and reprints significant published works on specific topics relevant to teaching, curriculum, scholarship, and professional status. Representing both recent scholarship and the classics in our field, Volume One, The Art...
wisely revising
Posted on August 21, 2009Marquette Prof Lisa Mazzie has written--and revised--and polished--and published a helpful article on the wisdom of developing a system for reviewing their writing. Titled Be Wise: Revise, the article is available in the online edition of The Wisconsin Lawyer (August...
New book on effective PowerPoint presentations and a helpful tip
Posted on August 21, 2009It's called "Real Leaders Don't Do PowerPoint" by Christopher Witt and is intended for public speakers (which includes all teachers, at lease some of the time). According to the Business Writing Blog, the book concedes there are times when PowerPoint...
Question from student: "Does a typo in my job application cover letter kill my chances?"
Posted on August 21, 2009"Yes" and "no" according to the blog Sweet Hot Justice. The bad news is that employers are detailed obsessed and thus a cover letter typo could be a deal-breaker. The "good" news - if you can call it that -...
The "Plain English" movement thankfully comes to health insurance policies
Posted on August 20, 2009An Op-Ed from today's New York Times talks about new legislation in Rhode Island that will mandate plain English for all consumer health insurance policies. Based on the Flesch-Kincaid test of readability, most language in health insurance policies is written...
sloppy citing upsets court
Posted on August 20, 2009Here's a court that wasn't too happy with some sloppy citing: FN5. Counsel for Espitia cites to an unpublished case assertedly upholding a stipulated damages clause due to the difficulty of ascertaining ?the exact amount of income certain vending machines...
Job opening - Harvard is hiring Climenko teaching fellows for 1L legal writing course
Posted on August 20, 2009Here's the post from the Legal Scholarship Blog: The First-Year Legal Research & Writing program at Harvard Law School is currently hiring Climenko Fellows to teach in the program from summer 2010 to summer 2012. Climenko Fellows are aspiring legal...
that cursed cursive!
Posted on August 20, 2009Professors are almost as notorious as doctors for their bad handwriting, but in our case, it is writ large on the blackboard or whiteboard or smartboard or ELMO or whatever you are using for in-class spur-of-the-moment writing. But even if...
blogs in legal education
Posted on August 19, 2009Blogging is the "new scholarship," some say. (But some say they are "bad.") Others say, "A blog is a blog." At any rate, if you like blogs by law professors or blogs about different topics in legal education, you will...
Scholarship alert: "Something Judicious this Way Comes . . . The Use of Foreshadowing as a Persuasive Device in Judicial Narrative"
Posted on August 19, 2009This is a working paper by Professor Michael J. Higdon, nee UNLV, now Tennessee. It can be found here on SSRN. From the abstract: With the recent publication of Judge Richard Posner?s book ?How Judges Think? and the nomination of...
Job opening for legal writing professor at Nova Southeastern School of Law
Posted on August 19, 2009Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center in Fort Lauderdale-Davie, Florida, has one opening for a position in its innovative First-Year Lawyering Skills and Values Program (?LSV?). Candidates should have at least two years of experience in the practice of...
job opening at Denver
Posted on August 18, 2009The University of Denver Sturm College of Law anticipates hiring two or more full-time lecturer positions to begin in the 2010-2011 academic year. The positions will be in its first-year legal research and writing program called Lawyering Process. Lawyering Process...
LRW prof's balance blog
Posted on August 18, 2009Hollee Temple, the legal writing program director at West Virginia U., is co-author of a new blog on finding a balanced life when raising kids. Her theme is Good Enough is the New Perfect. With so many legal writing professors...
learning names
Posted on August 18, 2009The fall semester is beginning, and if you're like me, you are getting ready to meet a lot of new students. The experts tell us that learning our students' names is one of the best ways to improve faculty-student and...
another job opening -- in Knoxville
Posted on August 18, 2009LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY?DUNCAN SCHOOL OF LAW seeks applications for a Director of Legal Skills beginning in fall 2010. The successful candidate will be responsible for: teaching one section of Legal Skills each semester; hiring adjuncts; monitoring adjuncts; training adjuncts; creating...
Call for Papers, Panels, and Presentations -- Global Legal Skills Conference V in Monterrey, Mexico!
Posted on August 17, 2009The fifth Global Legal Skills Conference will be held in Monterrey, Mexico on February 25-27, 2010 at the Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey. This is most important conference for law professors and others concerned about international legal education, and...
job opening at Dayton
Posted on August 17, 2009The University of Dayton School of Law seeks applications for a full-time Assistant Professor of Lawyering Skills to teach in the school?s Legal Profession Program beginning in the fall of the 2010-2011 academic year. Legal Profession I and II is...
coffee clash?
Posted on August 11, 2009This top story in yesterday's ABA Journal online describes the cultural change taking place as family members start the day on their separate computers in separate rooms. It also notes the frustration of coffehouse owners (a/k/a free wifi providers) who...
Fastcase and Casemaker: Free Legal Research Tools Available as a Bar Association Membership Benefit
Posted on August 11, 2009State bar associations have learned about an important membership benefit -- free legal research! There are two main research services that state bar associations offer to their members -- Fastcase and Casemaker. Together, these services provide FREE legal research as...
finding scholarships via Twitter
Posted on August 11, 2009Law students may be able to find more leads for financial assistance via a listing of 50 Tips and Tools to Find Scholarships on Twitter. Law professors who don't Twitter can learn a lot about the many things one can...
Are Textbooks Too Expensive?
Posted on August 10, 2009Click here for a short rant on the high cost of an international law casebook. And once you read that post (on the International Law Prof Blog, please come back here to leave a comment on the Legal Writing Prof...
kudos, Michael Higdon
Posted on August 10, 2009As he leaves UNLV (Boyd) to join the faculty at the University of Tennessee, we learn that Michael Higdon has been named the 2009 William S. Boyd School of Law Alumnus of the Year. Michael joined the UNLV faculty in...
the next SEALS conference
Posted on August 10, 2009With this summer's SEALS conference just recently completed, the call for papers has already gone out for next summer's conference, which will take place from July 29 to August 5, 2010, at The Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida. Your submission may...
writers workshop photo gallery
Posted on August 09, 2009Click on the photos above to see legal writing professors hard at work during the LWI Writers Workshop. That final group photo was taken outdoors, with Mt. Hood in the background; it's not a studio backdrop. photos by: Ken Chestek...
LWI writers workshop success
Posted on August 09, 2009The sixth annual LWI Writers Workshop took place July 25th through 27th, at The Resort at the Mountain, carved in the foothills of Mt. Hood, Oregon. A dozen legal writing professors who were working on law journal articles gathered with...
Yes, the Legal Writing Prof blog now has a fully functioning index
Posted on August 09, 2009A big thank you to blogmeister extraordinaire Joe Hodnicki at the Law Librarian Blog (who, along with Paul Caron of the TaxProf Blog, are the hosts of the Law Professors Blog network) for fixing the blog bug that prevented us...
job opening at Arizona State
Posted on August 08, 2009The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, invites applications for the full-time position of Clinical Professor of Law beginning with the 2010-2011 academic year. Responsibilities include teaching in the legal research and writing program...
director opening at Vanderbilt
Posted on August 08, 2009Vanderbilt University Law School seeks applicants for a full-time, non-tenure-track faculty position as Director of Legal Research & Writing Program, with appropriate professorial title. Candidates should have substantial experience teaching in such a program and preferably would have experience directing...
More Friday fun - 10 rounds with Kindle versus the book
Posted on August 07, 2009This is a really clever series of videos that pits the upstart challenger Kindle against the reigning champ, the book. It's a scheduled 10 round bout that's now in round three. Can the champ go the distance? Is Kindle a...
Is all the talk about more "practice oriented" law schools bad for students and the profession?
Posted on August 07, 2009Here's an interesting and provocative blog post from Professor Michael Livingston of Rutgers-Camden School of Law who argues that all the current talk about reforming the law school curriculum to focus more on practice will widen the divide between the...
Another law firm hops onto the "apprenticeship" bandwagon
Posted on August 07, 2009The law firm Day Pitney will move towards a summer apprenticeship program next year. According to an internal firm memo, the program is intended to be an eight-week course designed to prepare law students for the practice of law through...
Friday fun - if Facebook featured Shepards (or Keycite)
Posted on August 07, 2009This one from Courtoons speaks for itself. Enjoy! Hat tip to Above the Law. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
Here's an index to help you find older blog posts
Posted on August 07, 2009We appreciate our loyal readers and recognize there's a bug in the blog platform that prevents us from offering a fully functional index for older posts. While we continue to address this problem, here is a temporary fix - an...
One small law firm goes paperless leading to many cost and client advantages
Posted on August 07, 2009According to this report from Law.com's Legal Tech column, a small Delaware firm that handles hundreds of social security benefit cases found that client hard files were outpacing its storage abilities as well as turning into the firm's major overhead...
Congratulations to Ruth Vance!
Posted on August 06, 2009Ruth Vance has been named the recipient of the 2009 Distinguished Faculty Award at Valparaiso University School of Law. Ruth is an extraordinarily generous colleague, helping the field of legal writing in countless ways, large and small. She has previously...
Writing good cover letters for your article submissions
Posted on August 06, 2009This one comes to us via our very good friend Raymond Ward at the (new) legal writer blog (sorry, Raymond, I wasn't receiving the feed from your excellent blog while I was away this summer). The original post is from...
Legal Writing Prof blog makes list of top 35 blogs edited by law professors
Posted on August 06, 2009A big thank you to our good buddy Professor Paul Caron at the Tax Prof Blog for bringing this top 35 list to our attention. And an even bigger thanks to all of you, our loyal readers! Here's the complete...
Scholarship alert: Several articles on the precedential status of unpublished opinions
Posted on August 06, 2009My good colleague at NSU, Professor David Cleveland, has either published, or is in the process of publishing, four articles that discuss various aspects of unpublished opinions. They've been generating a lot of cyber-buzz and we wanted you to know...
finding balance in legal education
Posted on August 05, 2009Bruce Winick (University of Miami) has announced that the Association of American Law Schools has approved the petition for permanent section status for the Section on Balance in Legal Education. As Bruce, the section's Chair, put it, the section has...
Happy Birthday, Coleen Barger!
Posted on August 05, 2009We wish a happy birthday to blog co-editor (and citation fan) Coleen Barger! Nancy, Sue, Mark, and Jim
One young associate to another: "Suck it up!"
Posted on August 05, 2009In keeping with our military theme this afternoon (below), this story courtesy of Lawjobs.com is straight out of the Lee Ermey school of management. It's also consistent with this very popular story we recently ran about work-life balance in the...
Marines (and NFL) ban Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites.
Posted on August 05, 2009The few, the proud, the silent - at least according to this report from Cnet.news. Some segments of the military still feel that "loose lips sink ships" and hence have decided to make discretion mandatory in an age when most...
Top 100 blogs for law students
Posted on August 05, 2009We'd previously published such a list many moons ago but since our good buddy Professor Paul Caron at the Tax Prof Blog recently saw fit to publish an undated list, we thought we'd pass it along to all of you....
Computers learn creative writing
Posted on August 05, 2009Given the recent academic conference on the potential threat of artificial intelligence, can Skynet be far behind? Maybe not according to this story from the Chronicle of Higher Ed reporting that students at New York University this summer taught computers...
New Edition of Judge Aldisert's Book on Opinion Writing
Posted on August 04, 2009Judge Ruggero J. Aldisert is one of the persons recognized by the Legal Writing Institute with its prestigious Golden Pen Award. He is Chief Judge Emeritus and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third...
APPEAL conference photo gallery
Posted on August 04, 2009Click on these images to see legal writing professors and others exchanging ideas at the University of Pretoria last month. photos by Larry Cunningham & Cynthia Adams (spl)
successful APPEAL conference
Posted on August 04, 2009From July 1 to 4, the Conference on Promoting the Teaching of Legal Writing in South Africa, organized by APPEAL, and supported by ALWD and LWI, took place at the University of Pretoria. At the conference, U.S. and African participants...
tenure-track and teaching fellow job openings at Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Posted on August 04, 2009Thomas Jefferson School of Law anticipates hiring one or more persons to teach Legal Writing beginning in Fall 2010. Tenure-Track Position: Thomas Jefferson's legal writing program is taught primarily by tenure line faculty members. More information regarding the program can...
rules for using the reference desk
Posted on August 04, 2009With the imminent arrivals of 1Ls, you are probably preparing syllabi, lesson plans, assignments, even orientation materials. You might want to add this animated video clip by Mary Rumsey (Minnesota), setting out her "rules" for using the reference desk...
Greetings to the SEALS Conference
Posted on August 03, 2009The Southeast Association of Law Schools (SEALS) is holding its annual meeting this week in Palm Beach, Florida. Click here for links to the final conference program (which includes many legal writing professors) as well as other information about SEALS...
Updates on the Situation at DePaul
Posted on August 02, 2009The Law Library Blog has an important update on the situation at DePaul University College of Law and the outrageous failure of the ABA to address the firing of the law school dean in its accreditation report. Click here to...
ABA Panelists Say It is Nearly Impossible to Find Accurate Law Text Online
Posted on August 01, 2009Lynda Edwards, a reporter (not Linda Edwards the legal writing professor) covering the annual meeting of the American Bar Association, wrote that panelists at one session yesterday declared that it is almost impossible to find accurate texts of some laws...
Scribes Presents a Special Award to the Legal Writing Institute to Celebrate the LWI Silver Anniversary
Posted on August 01, 2009Scribes, The American Society of Legal Writers, held its Annual Luncheon today in Chicago during the ABA Annual Meeting. The 2009 Brief Writing Award went to Bridget Burke, Stephanie Holcombe, and Justin Jenson of the South Texas College of Law....
conference on interviewing and counseling
Posted on July 31, 2009UCLA School of Law and Brigham Young University Law School have announced that their second conference on the pedagogoy of interviewing and counseling will take place on October 16 & 17, 2009, at UCLA. If you are interested in participating...
Scholarship alert: "Professional skills and values in legal education: the GPS model"
Posted on July 31, 2009This one comes to us from Professors Gerald Hess of Gonzaga and Stephen Gerst from Phoenix School of Law. It can be found at 43 Val. U. L. Rev. 513 (2009). From the introduction: An old story about life: A...
New edition of Bryan Garner's Modern American Usage out now!
Posted on July 31, 2009Hup two and grab this while it's still fresh and warm from the oven. Here's the link to the publisher and here's another link to Joe Hodnicki's short review on the Law Librarian Blog. Hat tip to Joe. I am...
A review of two new entries in the competition to serve your online legal research needs
Posted on July 31, 2009I must confess, i hadn't heard of these two service before reading this article. I'm assuming they are both commercial (i.e. pay to play) services but the article doesn't make that 100% clear. I'm talking about Casemaker and Fastcase. If,...
Typos cost money - a lot of it
Posted on July 31, 2009Here's a list of recent examples of typos in legal documents that not only put the lawyers involved in hot water, but may also cost the client a lot of money. 1. Incorrect date in real estate document could cost...
In legal writing - groupings is where it's at.
Posted on July 31, 2009According to this editorial from the New Jersey Law Journal: Legal writing is all about groupings -- sets and subsets, and categories. These are the building blocks of logic. Accurate sets and subsets (accurate categories) increase the efficiency with which...
ALWD conference photo gallery
Posted on July 31, 2009Click on the images above to see legal writing professors at the ALWD conference, held in mid-July at UMKC School of Law. hat tip: Karen Mika (spl)
make courtroom nerves work for you
Posted on July 30, 2009Janet Metzger is an actress and adjunct law professor who teaches lawyers how to use theater techniques to improve their oral communications. She presented some easy techniques at the applied legal storytelling conference, and has posted one of those on...
images of applied legal storytelling
Posted on July 30, 2009The Legal Writing Institute's banner greeted conference participants. LWI Prez Ruth Anne Robbins & ALWD Prez, Mary Beth Beazley. Six LWI presidents toasted us. (pictured: Ruth Anne Robbins, Chris Rideout, Mary Beth Beazley, Ken Chestek, Steve Johansen) Chris Rideout presents...
quotable
Posted on July 29, 2009Those of you who have been teaching legal writing for some time likely know Professor Susan Brody, who was an LRW pioneer at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. At last week's applied legal storytelling conference, she gave a...
volume 6 of J. ALWD is here!
Posted on July 28, 2009This news comes from Editor Linda Berger: The Fall 2009 issue of J. ALWD (Vol. 6) is now available on the J. ALWD website. The issue focuses on "best practices" in persuasion and includes general articles as well. The print...
Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities: Call for papers and participation
Posted on July 28, 200913th Annual ASLCH Conference March 19-20, 2010 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities is an organization of scholars engaged in interdisciplinary, humanistic legal scholarship. It will be accepting proposals for...
Do you have a 1L story to share?
Posted on July 28, 2009The UMKC Law Review devotes part of one issue each year to a collection of ?Law Stories? ? short tales about various aspects of the legal world. For the next edition, the theme will be One-L Revisited. An introduction by...
YouTube features AALS video, "The Case for Legal Writing"
Posted on July 28, 2009The second of two videos created by the Media Committee of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research, titled "The Case for Legal Writing," focuses on the importance of legal writing to law practice. The other video, "Benefits...
AALS video, "Benefits of Legal Writing," premieres on YouTube
Posted on July 27, 2009The Media Committee of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research has recently released two videos demonstrating the importance of legal research and writing instruction in legal education. The first appears below. The committee plans to make the...
English legal storytelling
Posted on July 26, 2009Although the excellent applied Legal Storytelling conference has ended, there is still much to report, as time allows. Robert McPeake, from The City Law School in London, presented a paper he is working on with Marcus Soanes, asking Why Isn't...
basing decisions on life experience
Posted on July 24, 2009The Senate Judiciary Committee should have been at LWI's Applied Storytelling Conference today. In the opening plenary session, Ruth Anne Robbins and Steve Johansen presented This Is Your Brain on Stories. They first gave us a working definition of the...
Blackwell Award recipient announced
Posted on July 24, 2009Those of us attending the Applied Legal Storytelling conference were sworn to secrecy until it could be announced on the legal writing listserves first, but now that's done, we can announce here the recipient of the 2010 Blackwell Award: Steve...
Convictions
Posted on July 23, 2009The Attorney General of Oregon, John Kroger, opened the Applied Legal Storytelling conference in Portland last night, telling a few stories from his book, Convictions. He used to work as a federal prosecutor, and if you have ever stood in...
Hey Professor! You are what you wear.
Posted on July 22, 2009Or maybe not, according to a recent study by an educational psychologist who found that "how academics dress for a lecture doesn't affect how students perceive them ?at least in the long run." Here's more: Yasmine L. Konheim-Kalkstein, who holds...
Study shows more than 75% of minority female attorneys leave firms within 5 years
Posted on July 22, 2009That's a rather stunning statistic (although if you work for the guy in the post below, it's not hard to understand). The online ABA Journal is reporting today that research by a company called Catalyst produced the report which is...
Work-life balance - the employer's perspective
Posted on July 22, 2009These days, newly minted law grads looking for a job are more nervous and anxious than a horny toad stuck on a Texas freeway with its hopper busted. It can be downright scary. That's because the pendulum has swung to...
ABA Journal launches website to track "legal rebels" who are responding to changing market
Posted on July 22, 2009We have a saying around the offices of ye olde Legal Writing Prof Blog: When legal writing profs talk, people listen. Accordingly, in response to the growing consensus that we're in the midst of not just a temporary market downturn,...
Scholarship alert: "'Sending Down' Sabbatical: Lawyering in the Legal Services Trenches Has Benefits for Professor and Practitioner Alike"
Posted on July 21, 2009Professors Suzanne Rabe of Arizona and Stephen Rosenbaum of Berkeley have just authored the above article available on SSRN here. This work-in-progress has been generating some very positive buzz according to our insider Professor Mary Beth Beazley. From the abstract:...
Does removing computers from the classroom improve teaching?
Posted on July 21, 2009One of SoMo's deans seems to think so according to this story from The Chronicle of Higher Ed: College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture...
Continuing the Celebration of the Legal Writing Institute Silver Anniversary: A Video Discussion with Christopher Rideout, Laurel Oates, Anne Enquist, Lori Lamb, and Ralph Brill
Posted on July 21, 2009The first "official" Legal Writing Institute conference was held at the University of Puget Sound in 1984. The Institute was officially incorporated the year after that, and the Seattle area remained the home of the Legal Writing Institute for 20...
Law prof uses wiki in lieu of traditional textbook
Posted on July 21, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting that University of Iowa law professor Lea VanderVelde has chosen to use a wiki as her employment law text rather than a more traditional textbook: When Ms. VanderVelde was preparing to teach a...
The world's smallest law office?
Posted on July 21, 2009Let's file this one under "Friday Fun - a few days early." This may be the world's smallest law office - in Okeechobee, Florida at the corner of 3rd and Park, to be exact. Sent to me by a colleague,...
legal storytelling
Posted on July 21, 2009Tomorrow evening starts another summertime conference, Applied Legal Storytelling Chapter Two: Once Upon a Legal Story. Chapter One took place in 2007, at City Law School in London, and was so successful, the host organization, the Legal Writing Institute, has...
new jargon for the field
Posted on July 20, 2009Not surprising for a group as adept at metaphor as legal writing professors, the ALWD conference has left in its wake some new jargon for our field: The first term that seemed to catch on like wildfire was "Jack," used...
what about foreign citations?
Posted on July 20, 2009While at the ALWD conference this weekend, I got a copy of the Guide to Foreign and International Legal Citations (Aspen 2009). If you are a U.S. lawyer or legal scholar who often needs to cite to non-U.S. cases and...
ALWD conference pictures . . . .
Posted on July 20, 2009Left, Craig Smith (Vanderbilt)) and Kristin Gerdy (BYU) pose at the Liberty Memorial, site of Friday night's dinner. Right, Mary Beth Beazley (Ohio State) and Nancy Soonpaa (Texas Tech) enjoying a fine dinner inside at the World War I Museum....
ALWD conference pictures . . .
Posted on July 20, 2009Linda Fowler and Gail Stephenson of Southern with the Jazz Cow in front of the Jazz Museum before the closing dinner of ALWD.
the other ALWD conference hot topic
Posted on July 19, 2009In addition to experiential learning, the other hot topic heard throughout the ALWD conference was outcome assessments. The new interest in outcome assessments is driven in part by the ABA's broad review of all its standards and the philosophies behind...
the ALWD conference plenary
Posted on July 18, 2009The ALWD conference started in earnest this morning with a warm greeting from UMKC School of Law dean, Ellen Suni, who once upon a time was a legal writing program director. Her comments were right on the mark, and she...
live blogging from ALWD Conference: Experiential Learning
Posted on July 18, 2009At the ALWD Conference taking place this weekend at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Maria Crist (Dayton) is presenting on experiential learning. The components of experiential learning are that learner are willing to be actively involved, able to reflect on...
Continuing the Silver Anniversary Celebration of the Legal Writing Institute: Another LWI History Video
Posted on July 18, 2009Here is another video from Karin Mika in the series of videos that is documenting the history of the Legal Writing Institute. Click here to read more about that project (and to see another video in this series). In the...
supervising upper-division student writing
Posted on July 17, 2009Andrea McArdle (CUNY) is leading a discussion about the ABA upper-level writing standard, 302(a)(3), requiring "at least one . . . rigorous writing experience after the first year." Andrea referred to extensive data from the 2007 ALWD/LWI Survey of Legal...
liveblogging from ALWD conference
Posted on July 17, 2009In a breakout session led by Anthony Niedwiecki (Nova), participants are discussing ways to build relationships with faculty and administration. Session attendees are discussing ways they are improving their visibility and educating faculty colleagues about the legal writing programs...
One more time, with feeling: "Teaching with Technology: Is the pedagogical Fulcrum Shifting?"
Posted on July 17, 2009The New York Law School faculty is on fire this week. This article is by Professor Camille Broussard and can be found at 53 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 903 (2008/09) Technology continues to change the way we teach law, practice...
Scholarship alert part II: "The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age"
Posted on July 17, 2009This one also comes to us from a New York Law School professor - this time Professor William Mills - and can be found at 53 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 917 (2008/09). From the introduction: It is axiomatic that our...
Scholarship alert: "Podcasts, PowerPoint, and Pedagogy: Using Technology to Teach the Part-Time Student"
Posted on July 17, 2009By Professor Joyce Saltalamachia of New York Law School and published at 53 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 893 (2008/09). From the abstract: This essay will explore the use of various types of technology in order to assist part-time first-year law...
One BigLaw firm announces no OCI this fall and no summer program next year
Posted on July 16, 2009National firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius just announced that it will not be conducting any on-campus interviews this fall and thus has cancelled next year's summer associate program due to lack of work. You can read the rest of the...
ALWD conference under way!
Posted on July 16, 2009The bi-iennial conference of the Association of Legal Writing Directors started this afternoon, at the University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law. The ALWD Board of Directors and officers met for over two hours to take care of...
More advice to pass along to your students about how to find a law job
Posted on July 16, 2009The job market for lawyers is terrible so our students need every bit of advice we can give them. A place to start is the The Legal Blog Watch which has compiled advice from several sources here. Harvard Law School...
Kindle law books go for a higher price
Posted on July 15, 2009The amazing reading hardware from Amazon, Kindle, has begun to make some legal publications available to subscribers. But not for the same kind of discount that its other e-books deliver to readers. According to a July 10, 2009, story from...
AALS call for scholarly papers
Posted on July 15, 2009Just a reminder, the deadline is August 15, 2009, to submit a paper to the AALS call for scholarly papers. Legal writing professors don't generally submit papers, but as the saying goes, "you have to be in it to win...
Georgia Supreme Court to decide if lawn mower is motor vehicle
Posted on July 14, 2009Attention all LRW profs - this case has got "good hypo material" written all over it. After all, a lawn mower, like a car, has an engine, four wheels, brakes and a throttle. The question is being raised in the...
Salary gap widens between law grads headed for BigLaw and everyone else
Posted on July 14, 2009So reported the online ABA Journal recently. Here are the details: A survey of the class of 2008 shows 23 percent of the graduates made $160,000, the amount the big law firms paid to newly minted associates, according to a...
Professor Sarah Ricks interviewed by Politifact.com re: Sotomayor's role in Ricci decision
Posted on July 14, 2009Rutgers professor Sarah Ricks gave an online interview last Friday to the website Politifact.com offering balance to political pundit Anne Coulter's criticism of Sotomayor's role in the Second Circuit's handling of the Ricci case, recently overturned by SCOTUS...
Are there too many law schools turning out too many law grads?
Posted on July 12, 2009It's a question the Legal Writing Prof blog has been asking for months. The New York Times picked up on the story back in March and now the most widely read university-level educational journal, The Chronicle of Higher Ed., is...
The blogosphere debate on the adequacy of law school training
Posted on July 12, 2009The discussion begun by Paul Lippe, founder of the attorney networking site Legal OnRamp, criticizing the adequacy of law school training, which we first reported here, has finally gained traction and is now running hotter than a nitro-methane funny car...
What some law schools are doing to help grads find jobs
Posted on July 12, 2009The Minnesota Lawyer is reporting the measures four schools in that state are taking to help current students maintain morale and help recent grads find jobs. Among the strategies: 1. School funded, post-JD fellowships for graduates who haven't found jobs...
Justice Ginsburg discusses the importance of a woman's perspective on the Supreme Court
Posted on July 12, 2009In a Q & A in today's magazine section of the NYT's, Justice Ginsburg talks about the importance of having women on the SCOTUS both in terms of public perception and influence on the decision-making. Her remarks were made in...
Ward Churchill gets "zip" - Judge throws out jury verdict
Posted on July 12, 2009In case you haven't already heard, in a case we've been following for months that arguably tested the limits of academic freedom (at least according to the plaintiff), the Colorado trial judge that presided over the Ward Churchill case has...
And you thought you knew Haiku . . . .
Posted on July 12, 2009By way of explanation for our loyal blog readers who are not legal writing profs, a couple of times each year - usually around grading season - a few LRW profs post haikus on the Legal Writing Institute listserv. Others...
advice on contract drafting
Posted on July 11, 2009Ken Adams has it--advice, that is, and it's good to boot. I liked his response to a law student who opined that contract drafting is neither a creative nor an imaginative process. Her experiences inserting boilerplate into ready-made templates had...
resources for teaching ESL students
Posted on July 11, 2009The Legal Writing Institute?s Global Legal Writing Skills/International Outreach Committee has posted helpful resources for professors teaching legal analysis, legal writing, legal research, and related topics to LL.M. students. At http://lwionline.org/, click on "Member Resources," then click on "Teaching International...
The worst and the shortest oral argument?
Posted on July 10, 2009A few days ago in my summer legal writing class as we were practicing oral arguments, a student asked whether she had to use all of her allotted time. The answer is "no" and to illustrate the point, I showed...
USNWR ranks law firms. What next? Why not rank everyone?
Posted on July 10, 2009Speaking for myself, the USNWR law school rankings are an eminently reasonable response to consumer demand for information about how to spend their educational dollars. One may quibble with USNWR's ranking formula and those ranked may argue about the results,...
Scholarship alert: "Teaching transactional lawyering"
Posted on July 10, 2009This article comes from Drexel Professor Karl Okamoto and can be found at 1 Drexel L. Rev. 69 (2009). From the introduction: Over the years I have developed a habit. Whenever I meet a ?deal lawyer? of some experience and...
more kudos!
Posted on July 10, 2009Continuing to report on progress and prizes in the legal writing field: At the University of Maine, Angie Arey was appointed Associate Professor of Legal Writing, a nice step up from the "Legal Writing Instructor" title she held for the...
History Videos on Legal Writing . . . Before the Legal Writing Institute!
Posted on July 09, 2009The Legal Writing Institute is currently celebrating its 25th Anniversary with a series of special events and commemorations. Upcoming events include special recognition for LWI at a conference on the future of legal education being sponsored by The John Marshall...
more promotions and special positions
Posted on July 08, 2009At Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, Ken Chestek and Jim Dimitri have both been promoted from Association Clinical Professor of Law to full Clinicial Professor of Law. Also this spring, at the University of Arizona Rogers College of...
European Humanities University
Posted on July 07, 2009The European Humanities University was previously located in Belarus, until the dictator running that country shut it down. Instead of closing up shop entirely, the university moved to neighboring Lithuania. A professor from that university has attended Legal Writing Institute...
A companion piece to the story below - what will the faculty of the future look like?
Posted on July 07, 2009Here's an excerpt from the Chronicle of Higher Ed story: The faculty workplace has changed significantly in the last 20 years: More women, minority professors, and adjuncts have joined the professoriate. Information technology has led to new opportunities and expectations...
What will university students of the future expect from schools?
Posted on July 07, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed is offering a paid report that describes what future college students will expect from their schools in the year 2020. Here's a portion of the abstract: More students will attend classes online, study part time,...
250,000 Visits to the Legal Writing Prof Blog!
Posted on July 06, 2009We just had our 250,000th visitor to the Legal Writing Prof Blog! We're not sure WHO you are, but we know that you accessed us from beautiful Fremont, California. Please contact us to let us know who you are --...
Fox Business News story on the University of Miami School of Law 1L deferrals
Posted on July 06, 2009As you may have heard, Above the Law last week broke the story that U of Miami School of Law had a historically high 1L yield and as a result the Dean was advising students to either defer their decision...
Scholarship alert: "A Preliminary Exploration of the Elements of Expert Performance in Legal Writing"
Posted on July 05, 2009This is a working paper available on SSRN, here, by Shelley M. Kierstead and Erika Abner, both Canadian academics. From the abstract: This paper describes results of focus group research conducted with senior advocacy lawyers in relation to the lawyers'...
How our brains assess risk and possible lessons for more effective advocacy
Posted on July 05, 2009Here's a very interesting NYT's editorial that discusses the work of University of Oregon psychology Professor Paul Slovic, an expert on how humans assess risk in connection with decision-making. Although the editorial is directed at Congress's tepid efforts to address...
Scholarship alert: "Putting it All Together: Law Schools' Role in Improving Appellate Practice"
Posted on July 05, 2009This one comes to us from Professor Coleen Barger's former student and protege Stella J. Phillips (they grow up so fast, don't they?) and is available at 31 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 135 (2008). Here's the abstract for...
promotions for legal writing professors
Posted on July 05, 2009This spring, Danielle Shelton and Lisa Penland, both legal writing professors at Drake University Law School, were promoted to the rank of Professor of Law. Nancy Oliver, at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, has been promoted to the...
Hey baby, "It's the 4th of July"
Posted on July 04, 2009Here's a little seasonal music courtesy of Dave Alvin. This one goes out to a very special person in Palm City. If the embedded video isn't working (even though I clicked "enabled" :-), go here. Have yourself a very happy...
American Association of Law Libraries
Posted on July 04, 2009Here's a little something special for all of our citation junkie readers. It's a link to the Citations Committee Page of the American Association of Law Libraries. Enjoy. (mew)
"Forthwith" versus "promptly" - you decide!
Posted on July 03, 2009Here's an interesting post from AdamsDrafting in which contract drafting expert Ken Adams questions why lawyers continue to use archaic terms in their contracts like "forthwith" rather than "promptly" or "immediately." But progress is being made. To wit, blogmeister Adams...
Michigan bans electronic communication devices during jury trials
Posted on July 03, 2009In response to complaints from prosecutors that jurors are distracted during trials by their cell phones, PDA's and similar devices, the Michigan Supreme Court has banned jurors from engaging in electronic communication during trials. As the blog Law...
Are academic listservs, including LWI's, losing their appeal?
Posted on July 03, 2009That's the question raised by this columnfrom the Chronicle of Higher Ed which questions whether academic listservs are losing relevance in light of blogs, wikis, Facebook, Twitter and the like which arguably do a better job facilitating exchange and debate...
Westlaw goes "green"
Posted on July 02, 2009In this YouTube video, Westlaw representatives talk about the steps they are taking to be more environmentally-conscious in their dealings with summer law clerks. If the embedded video doesn't work (there have been some problems lately with the blog), try...
"Excellent communication skills": bad boilerplate?
Posted on July 02, 2009Among the "worst 10 boilerplate phrases" one should "seek out and destroy" in professional resumes is this standard reference to communications skills, says Liz Ryan of The Savvy Networker (posted in Yahoo! hotjobs). Another "stodgy boilerplate" phrase is "team player...
Still more on the "apprenticeship" model of law firm employment
Posted on July 01, 2009We reported earlier that several law firms are slashing starting associate pay and instead placing new grads on an apprenticeship track that will provide supplemental skills training that law schools, at least according to these employers, are not offering...
The online ABA Journal's "Question of the Week": The worst briefs and oral arguments.
Posted on July 01, 2009There should be good lessons to pass along to students based on this week's question to readers posed by the online ABA Journal. Specifically, the Journal is asking its readers: What kind of words and phrasing do you see in...
Another sign 'o the economic times - Lexis and Westlaw offer free online services for unemployed lawyers
Posted on July 01, 2009Westlaw has started a website called Between Cases which is intended to serve as an information clearinghouse for displaced attorneys looking for work. In addition, as the Legal Blog Watch reports, Westlaw is donating $12 million in free research services...
Details on the Scribes Luncheon in Chicago on August 1st
Posted on July 01, 2009We have the details now about the Scribes Luncheon that will be held in Chicago on August 1, 2009 during the annual meeting of the American Bar Association. Click here for details on the program and information on how to...
student bloopers
Posted on July 01, 2009Sometimes a writing teacher just can't help it. A typo or grammar error in a student paper creates such an amusing sentence, the teacher just has to share it with somebody. So as a law student, how would you feel...
It was a dark and stormy night when the 2009 Bulwer Lytton awards were announced
Posted on June 30, 2009It was David McKenzie of Federal Way, Washington, who penned this year's winning entry in the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest, that annual extravaganza that looks for clever, but awful (in a clever way) renditions of prose that will make you...
Did a State University Barter Jobs for Law School Grads in Exchange for Law School Admission of Under-Qualified, Politically Connected Students?
Posted on June 29, 2009This isn't strictly about legal writing but it is of great interest to legal writing professors and other professors who work in state schools. All law schools should consider admission factors other than a student's grades or LSAT scores when...
Scalia, Garner Discuss Legal Writing at Texas State Bar Meeting
Posted on June 29, 2009Law.com picked up a story from aTexas Lawyer Blog (Called "Tex Parte") about a talk that U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and legal writing expert Bryan Garner gave in Garner's home state of Texas at the annual meeting...
More on the private sector apprenticeships to make-up for lack of adequate law school training
Posted on June 29, 2009We'd previously reported here that a few BigLaw firms were slashing new associate pay and instead offering them a one to two year apprenticeship to teach new grads what the law schools are apparently not. At a time when job...
Photos from the 10th Anniversary Burton Awards for Legal Writing Excellence
Posted on June 28, 2009The Burton Awards were given out on Monday, June 15th, at a grand event at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. This is a major national event in the legal writing community. This year's event also marked the 10th...
Foolish or not, consistency is what winds the clock of "word nerds"
Posted on June 26, 2009Although I teach legal writing, I've never considered the course to be much about the technical aspects of writing rather than teaching students to "think in ink." As clear writing guru William Zinnser has said: "Fuzzy writing is almost always...
The changing methods and definitions of cheating
Posted on June 26, 2009While I was off the grid last week, my former Dean Joseph Harbaugh sent me this interesting story from USA Today describing how high school students are using cellphones to cheat. Here's an excerpt: One-fourth of teens' cellphone text messages...
The "Top 10" most ridiculous lawsuits ever filed
Posted on June 26, 2009Who doesn't like a "Top 10" list? And with this one, you might even be able to find some good hypothetical research and writing problem material (in fact, I've used a problem based on # 8 for years - whether...
Scholarship alert: "Practitioners Beware: Under Amended TRAP 47, "Unpublished" Memorandum Opinions in Civil Cases are Binding and Research on Westlaw and Lexis is a Necessity"
Posted on June 26, 2009This article comes to us from our good buddy Professor Andrew Solomon at South Texas College of Law. Practitioners Beware: Under Amended TRAP 47, "Unpublished" Memorandum Opinions in Civil Cases are Binding and Research on Westlaw and Lexis is a...
A survey of university "Netiquette" policies relating to classroom laptop use
Posted on June 26, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed has compiled a helpful survey of university policies regarding student laptop use in the classroom. While the policies described may not necessarily reflect the prevailing practice at most schools, the ones included (as well as...
transactional conference
Posted on June 24, 2009The Emory Center for Transactional Law and Practice will hold its second bi-annual conference on transactional training on June 4 and June 5, 2010. Save the dates. A request for proposals will be distributed in the early fall. hat tip:...
Jenoff joins Rutgers faculty
Posted on June 24, 2009In July, Pam Jenoff will be joining the legal writing faculty at Rutgers-Camden. Pam has a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters from Cambridge University, and a BA in International Affairs from George Washington University. She currently is...
Legal OnRamp founder offers advice for fixing broken legal education system
Posted on June 24, 2009Paul Lippe, the founder of the lawyer-social networking site Legal OnRamp, offers some advice on how law schools can do a much better job preparing students for the practice of law. And guess what? Adding more skills training into the...
Debt relief for our students is on the way
Posted on June 24, 2009Courtesy of the College Cost Reduction & Access Act. The online ABA Journal breaks it down this way: On the public interest side, loan forgiveness works like this: After making loan payments for 10 years on government-backed loans, the government...
Attention legal researchers - Lexis to offer June 30 webinar on how Headnotes work
Posted on June 24, 2009This is a webinar for law school faculty taking place on June 30. It's entitled "Search by Topic or Headnote" and I think it's free but can't tell for sure from the link I received. E-registration is required and you...
More critiques of Judge Sotomayor's writing style
Posted on June 24, 2009We had previously reported on some early critiques of the Supreme Court nominee's writing style here. The National Law Journal has gathered reactions from several more factions here. This is an excerpt: Stephanie Mencimer in Mother Jones magazine panned Sotomayor's...
Some universities start a valet parking service for students (and faculty)
Posted on June 24, 2009File this under "you gotta be kidding me!" But yes, friends, it's true - some universities have started to offer a valet service to assist students, faculty and visitors who are either having trouble finding a parking spot or are...
Five ways attorneys can make use of a Kindle in practice
Posted on June 24, 2009Kindle (and similar devices) will likely be coming to law school classrooms soon (it would be presumptuous to say this is a "definite" since trying to predict which technologies the legal academy will wholesale embrace is foolhardy). Here's a brief...
More on the Firing of DePaul's Law Dean
Posted on June 24, 2009We posted previously on the unbelievably stupid decision by DePaul University´s Provost to fire DePaul Law School Dean Glen Weissenberger. Click here and here to read our previous posts on that. DePaul University announced that Illinois Appellate Court Justice Warren...
Change is here: BigLaw slashes salaries and offers new associates "apprenticeships" to supplement inadequate law school training
Posted on June 24, 2009This is a very positive and inevitable move. You don't really need to be Peter Lynch to know that paying new law grads $160K to start is not a sustainable business model. In light of that, Washington D.C.'s Howrey has...
First law grad from online law school admitted to Massachusetts bar
Posted on June 24, 2009A student who graduated from the unaccredited Concord Law School, which is an online law school, recently won the right to be admitted to the Massachusetts bar after successfully challenging that rule that required a degree from an ABA accredited...
What's worse than an "F"? Canadian university comes up with an answer
Posted on June 24, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting that good 'ol Simon Fraser U. in British Columbia (aka "Beautiful B.C.") has approved a new grade called "FD" which stands for "failure for academic dishonesty." The new grade is intended to serve...
Persuasive Writing for Lawyers
Posted on June 23, 2009Helen Gunnarsson, who writes for the Illinois Bar Journal (published by the Illinois State Bar Association) has taped a CLE course, "Persuasive Writing for Lawyers," at www.MentorCLE.com. You can watch it at your convenience for free; if you like it,...
Institute for Law Teaching and Learning - Summer Conference on Teaching Skills and Professionalism
Posted on June 23, 2009We extend our best wishes for a successful conference to Gonzaga University Law School in Spokane, Washington. The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning that is housed there is holding its 2009 Summer Conference this week on "Implementing Best Practices...
Wow! We Have a VIDEO of the Burton Award Presentation to Professor Richard Neumann for Outstanding Contribution to Legal Writing Education
Posted on June 22, 2009Professor Richard K. Neumann of Hofstra Law School received the 2009 Burton Award for Outstanding Contribution to Legal Writing Education. It is one of the highly prestigious Burton Awards for Legal Achievment are presented annually in Washington DC at the...
DePaul Names Illinois Appellate Court Justice Warren Wolfson as Its Interim Dean
Posted on June 22, 2009DePaul University has just named an interim dean to replace Glen Weissenberger. It is Warren D. Wolfson, a justice on the Illinois Appellate Court. Judge Wolfson will reportedly assume the position as interim dean for a two-appointment starting on August...
the power of punctuation
Posted on June 22, 2009A new album by a band called Wussy was featured on NPR's radio show Fresh Air today. In a song entitled "Maglite," the band uses these lyrics: "I finally got your letter, and your punctuation hit me like a truck."...
More Posts on DePaul University's Incredibly Stupid Decision to Fire Law Schol Dean Glen Weissenberger for Reporting Truthful Information to the ABA
Posted on June 21, 2009As we reported on Friday, the Provost of DePaul University FIRED one of the best law school deans that the law college ever had, Glen Weissenberger. Dean Weissenberger had sent a letter to the ABA Consultant on Legal Education on...
UNBELIEVABLE!!! DePaul University College of Law FIRES Its Dean for Reporting Truthful Information to the ABA!!!
Posted on June 19, 2009This important news JUST in . . . (AND UPDATES ADDED AT THE END) DePaul University College of Law in Chicago FIRED Dean Glen Weissenberger yesterday, one of the best deans that school has ever had. He was fired apparently...
Chicago Conference on Change in Legal Education
Posted on June 19, 2009The John Marshall Law School of Chicago will host a forum on July 29, 2009 to discuss change in legal education in response to the Carnegie Report. Click here for more information. If you're coming to Chicago for the annual...
identifying the Digital Native
Posted on June 19, 2009What is a Digital Native? Well, you probably have a classroom full of 'em. Here's a piece listing characteristics of this demographic group . . . those who grew up immersed in technology. While you may be a Digital Native...
Introduction to Legal English -- A New Edition of the Book for Lawyers and Law Students Who Speak English as a Second Language
Posted on June 19, 2009The International Law Institute of Washington D.C. has just published the third edition of Introduction to Legal English. This book was the first in the United States to focus specifically on the needs of lawyers and law students who speak...
To right a wrong, judge orders defendants to write a book
Posted on June 17, 2009I know some of my students would consider that sentence tantamount to torture. The New York Times has a cheeky editorial today describing the habit of Judge Ricardo Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of D.C. ordering...
Assessment Conference in September at the University of Denver - Call for Proposals By July 1, 2009
Posted on June 16, 2009The University of Denver Sturm College of Law will be hosting a conference on September 11-13, 2009 focused on Assessment in Legal Education. Proposals for possible presentation are being sought before July 1, 2009. As David Thomson notes, assessment is...
Predictions about the legal job market from the NALP
Posted on June 16, 2009I'll give you a hint - it ain't pretty according to this conference call entitled Nationwide Phone Briefing to Discuss Job Prospects for Attorneys in a Difficult Economy sponsored by the National LGBT Bar Association which included, among others, the...
More relevant sociological studies - this time "post-racial America" is a myth
Posted on June 16, 2009I can't say this editorial from yesterday's NYT surprises me much given what I've already read about the pervasiveness of sub-conscious biases we all carry. It's nevertheless interesting, important and sobering news. Here's an excerpt: People who believe that blunt-force...
Advice to students on how to make their clients feel valued
Posted on June 16, 2009We've reported previously (here) that law firms want students who are more business oriented and some law schools (here) are already responding by thinking of ways to bring business course into the curriculum. Help your students stay ahead of the...
Salaries are good if you're a SCOTUS clerk - for the rest of us, not so much
Posted on June 16, 2009The online ABA Journal is reporting (via the National Law Journal) that the bad (um, how about horrifying?) legal economy is affecting even the best of the best - those clerking for the United States Supreme Court. Apparently last year,...
Why is intelligence like style?
Posted on June 16, 2009You either got it or you don't, baby! At least according to this column in the Chronicle of Higher Ed by a professor of behavioral and applied sciences at Texas A&M. Here's an excerpt: [Howard Gardner - author of Frames...
Academic freedom is under attack at many law school clinics
Posted on June 16, 2009So reports the Chronicle of Higher Ed in this piece. Here's an excerpt: Many faculty members at law-school clinics feel pressure from their bosses to steer clear of cases that might incur the displeasure of donors, lawmakers, or others who...
Maybe we should close the paper mills after all - yet another commentator weighs in on e-textbooks
Posted on June 16, 2009I wish the commentators would make up their minds already . . . sheesh! We've reported on those who like Kindle and its ilk and those who don't, here and here. You can now add this professor at Southern Vermont...
What's the next frontier of legal research?
Posted on June 16, 2009Read this entry from the Law Librarian blog and consider yourself enlightened. Hat tip to Joe Hodnicki. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
Visit the Legal Writing Store
Posted on June 16, 2009Are you a Badass Woman or Man of Legal Writing? Does your Dean Support Legal Writing? Are you a Member of Pink Ink? Did your Students Survive Oral Argument? If you answered yes to any of these questions, be sure...
quotable
Posted on June 16, 2009"Those who write clearly have readers. Those who write obscurely have commentators." - Albert Camus Obviously Camus didn't have to account for the SCOTUS nomination process. (spl)
Scholarship alert - "Information For Submitting Articles to law Reviews and Journals"
Posted on June 16, 2009The 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 (login maybe required) on SSRN. From the abstract: This document...
On the other hand, hiring within India is up
Posted on June 16, 2009As reported below, while some domestic firms are reluctant to use offshore Indian lawyers until certain issues are resolved, the market for legal services within India itself is on the rise according to the ABA Journal. In fact, some US...
More offshoring news - firms say why they are reluctant to use Indian firms
Posted on June 16, 2009Legal Blog Watch is reporting (via The Times of India) that many US and UK firms are reluctant to use offshore Indian firms because of: 1. Data security issues; and 2. quality of work concerns (ed. note - there's certainly...
Westlaw's Keycite makes a mistake - and it's a big one
Posted on June 15, 2009Here's a very valuable reminder to students and practitioners alike - that Westlaw's keycite notions, like judgments about what Digest Topics to assign the cases- are made by people who, ultimately, are fallible. To wit - Westlaw's Keycite is erroneously...
Outsourcing
Posted on June 15, 2009Laurel Oates, Mimi Samuel, and Anne Enquist have been sharing some interesting thoughts on some of the implications still to be realized from legal outsourcing. Their posts appear on the Seattle University School of Law website, Cases and Controversies...
Another Hein OnLine Legal Research Training Video
Posted on June 15, 2009We've posted here before about the research videos available from Hein OnLine. Here's a new video on the exciting subject of pulling up a section of the Code of Federal Regulations. This video is only 44 seconds long, which is...
Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference in Portland - August 28-29, 2009
Posted on June 15, 2009The Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference will take place in Portland, Oregon, on August 28 and August 29, 2009. Conference registration is now open Click here to register. Hotel information is available by clicking here. . Hat tip to Rebekah...
The Empire State Strikes Back - A Writing Conference in New York on May 14, 2010
Posted on June 15, 2009Hofstra Law School in Hempstead, New York, will host the first Empire State Legal Writing Conference on May 14, 2010. The Conference will be a one-day event, timed in such a way that people in the greater NYC area can...
Lap Cat Scholar
Posted on June 15, 2009William Myhill at Syracuse University writes a thoughtful blog called Lap Cat Scholar. He "discusses timely issues impacting the academic community," particularly those related to scholarship and publishing, including more nuanced views of plagiarism, technological advances, etc...
Like to Write?
Posted on June 15, 2009Here's a call for papers from Pace International Law Review, which will hold a symposium on comparative constitutional law and national security around the globe. Click here to read more. (mew)
The John Marshall Law School of Chicago holds a Forum to Discuss Change in Legal Education
Posted on June 15, 2009The John Marshall Law School of Chicago will host a forum for discussion on the prospect of change in our system of legal education in response to the Carnegie Report. Scholars, deans, and professors in doctrinal and skills-based disciplines will...
Does the web make students better writers? Several longitudinal studies try to find out
Posted on June 15, 2009This is big - we'll finally have some empirical data to help us determine whether Web 2.0 is helping or hurting the writing abilities of students, according to this very interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Of course,...
Last Call! Monday is the Deadline for Submitting Proposals for the LWI Conference
Posted on June 14, 2009You can't put it off any longer! Click here to submit a proposal for possible presentation at the 2010 Legal Writing Institute Conference, to be held June 27-30, 2010 at Marco Island, Florida. The website accepting proposals will be shut...
Have you been the victim of "academic mobbing?"
Posted on June 13, 2009Here's the definition of "academic mobbing" from the Chronicle of Higher Ed: it's a "form of bullying in which members of a department gang up to isolate or humiliate a colleague" which can result in destroying that person's career. Sound...
Time Magazine says Facebook is "gold mine" of impeachment fodder for litigators
Posted on June 13, 2009This is as credible a source as any when reminding students about the professional (and personal) perils of social networking sites - they've become a "gold mine" of potentially damaging information for litigators. You can read the full story here...
Starting tonight - land-grab for usernames on Facebook - get yours before someone else does
Posted on June 13, 2009If you want to hold onto your Facebook username, you better act quick because at midnight tonight (EST), Facebook is going to start allowing its 200 million users to register usernames and if someone else takes yours first, it might...
More of the good stuff - Scholarship alert part III: "A proposed definition of the term "lawyering".
Posted on June 13, 2009By Josiah M.Daniel, III, a partner at Vinson & Elkins L.L.P., Dallas, and can be found at 101 Law Lib. J. 207 (2009). From the abstract: 'Lawyering' is the work of a specially skilled, knowledgeable, or experienced person who, serving...
Scholarship alert part II: Research in the wild: CALR and the role of informal apprenticeship in attorney training
Posted on June 13, 2009This one is by Judith Lihosit, Instruction and Outreach Reference Librarian, University of San Diego Pardee Legal Research Center, and can be found at 101 Law Lib. J. 157 (2009). From the abstract: Much recent scholarship has posited that computer-assisted...
Scholarship alert: The Yale Journal of Law and Feminism twenty years ago: reflections from our founding members
Posted on June 13, 2009Co-authored by Sara Ricks and found at 20 Yale J.L. & Feminism 247 (2009). From the abstract: What stands out most in my mind was just how easy it was to start the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism (YJLF)...
Illinois Lawyer Now
Posted on June 13, 2009The Illinois State Bar Association's online news delivery system is now up and running. Please click here to to view the first postings. Illinois Lawyer Now also can be accessed from the ISBA home page under the "ISBA News" column....
it's got legs
Posted on June 13, 2009Ben Opipari is writing a blog called Literary Legs, in which he combines his love for running and and his love for writing. If you don't run, you can skip those parts of course and still get good ideas from...
new directors at WVU
Posted on June 12, 2009Grace Wigal, long-time legal writing director at West Virginia University, is leaving that job to become the new academic support director there. Meanwhile Hollee Temple, long-time legal writing professor at West Virginia University, will be the new legal writing director...
outsourcing LRW
Posted on June 12, 2009Professor Laurel Oates has posted updates about U.S. law firms outsourcing overseas many core legal research and writing functions. This trend goes far beyond document review, all the way to the basic legal research and document drafting taught in 1L...
Law profs sue West Publishing for falsely attributing their names to poorly researched treatise
Posted on June 11, 2009Here's the skinny courtesy of Law.com: In the suit, professors David Rudovsky of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Leonard Sosnov of Widener Law School claim that they did none of the work on the December 2008 supplement, or...
Reform badly needed for evaluating public school teachers
Posted on June 11, 2009Here's a pretty scathing indictment of the manner in which public school teachers are evaluated courtesy of today's New York Times Op-Ed page. Read it and see if you agree. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
The effect of the vanishing trial on legal education
Posted on June 11, 2009A civil trial may become as elusive and rare as the Yeti according to this symposium scheduled for July 31 at DePaul. It will be an exclusive affair - only law schools deans have been invited to attend this all...
The future of lawyer outsourcing and its impact on the American job market
Posted on June 11, 2009Here's an interesting interview with a leading outsourcing firm in India courtesy of Above the Law. In the interview, the director of Mannthan Legal, Gururaj Potnis, discusses what he believes is a "tectonic shift . . . taking place in...
Don't close the paper mills yet - more problems with E-textbooks
Posted on June 11, 2009Following up on our story from a few days ago, the Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting on more problems integrating E-textbooks into the undergraduate curriculum. Last year [Northwest Missouri State University] tech-happy president, Dean L. Hubbard, bought a Kindle,...
Should the bar exam test legal research skills?
Posted on June 11, 2009That's the question our good buddy and master law librarian Joe Hodnicki is asking over at the Law Librarian Blog. As Joe says: The National Conference of Bar Examiners and many others have been skeptical that legal research can be...
the other side
Posted on June 11, 2009Spurred on by a recent legal writing professors' listserve discussion, Lisa McElroy and Chris Coughlin have written an article on the cognitive reasons why students have difficulty formulating counter-analysis and how we can best help students to analyze ?the other...
Electronic textbooks - not a sure thing just yet.
Posted on June 10, 2009We'd previously reported that the Kindle DX is likely to be the next big thing in academic technology. However, the Chronicle of Higher Ed reminds us that even seemingly great ideas must still find acceptance among the ever fickle public....
2010 Legal Writing Institute Conference - Remember to Submit Proposals by June 15!
Posted on June 10, 2009The deadline to submit proposals for possible presentation at the 2010 LWI Conference is June 15, 2009. Click here to read one of our earlier posts about how to submit proposals to the LWI. The web site accepting proposals will...
California court to consumers - there's no such thing as a Crunchberry tree.
Posted on June 10, 2009No wonder the public has a cynical view of lawyers. Some California lawyers agreed to take a case alleging that Cap't Crunch engaged in fraud by calling one of its cereals "Crunchberry" and thereby deceiving the public into thinking it...
More on the nature vs. nurture debate regarding IQ.
Posted on June 10, 2009Here's an interesting Op-Ed piece from the Saturday New York Times reporting on a new book called Intelligence and How to Get It by University of Michigan psychology professor Richard Nisbett in which the good doctor argues that "success depends...
A June snapshot of the legal marketplace
Posted on June 09, 2009Here's a sampling from this week's news about where things stand today. According to the Department of Labor, 1,300 legal services jobs were lost in May, 14,000 since January 1 and 25,000 in the past year. Is the worst behind...
Students say to panel of teachers: "Enough already with the group assignments!"
Posted on June 09, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting that a group of undergraduate students who spoke at the Sixth Annual Teaching Professor conference in Wisconsin this past weekend had a message for the world's college instructors: "no more group assignments?at least...
Colorado Judge rules that academic tenure benefits the public
Posted on June 09, 2009In a case involving a suit by faculty at Denver's Metropolitan State College that challenged a decision by the Board of Trustees to remove certain rights from the faculty handbook, the court stated that "the public interest is advanced more...
Trends in scholarly publishing
Posted on June 09, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed asked several experts to make predictions and have provided their responses here. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
More Photos from Marco Island
Posted on June 09, 2009The Legal Writing Institute will hold its 2010 National Conference on Marco Island, Florida. Proposals are due by June 15, 2009. The website accepting proposals will be shut down that following day, so no late proposals can be submitted. Suzanne...
ISBA Legal Writing Seminar
Posted on June 08, 2009Jim Covington of the the Illinois State Bar Association will hold a one-day legal writing program in Chicago on Friday, June 12, 2009. Jim has a longstanding interest in good legal writing and I'm happy to see that he's putting...
You say "tomayto," I say "tomahto" but how-the-heck do you designate the whole a.m./p.m. thing?
Posted on June 07, 2009Before we call the whole thing off, let's first consult the Business Writer blog which tells us that: The Associated Press Stylebook says: 4 p.m. Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications says: 4 P.M. The Chicago Manual of Style...
Advice for women faculty who are seeking pay parity with male colleagues
Posted on June 07, 2009This comes to us from the advice column of Inside Higher Ed. Here's an excerpt: Your goal is to bring your salary into parity with those of your senior male colleagues. You also want to get this resolved through informal...
Forget about "the dog ate my homework" and get ready for "the computer corrupted my file"
Posted on June 07, 2009Free enterprise - 'ya gotta love it! Where there's a need, and a buck to be made, you can be sure some enterprising young rapscallion will step in to fill the void quicker than you can say "Adam Smith." Case...
Open advice thread for tips on conducting legal research on the cheap.
Posted on June 05, 2009A brand new, law student edited blog called The Blackbook Legal Blog has started an open thread for exchanging tips on how to conduct legal research on the cheap. Most of the comments so far seem pretty sound - you...
An analysis of Judge Sotomayor's legal writing style
Posted on June 05, 2009At last, you say, a post that's actually about writing. And not just any kind of writing, mind you, but honest-to-goodness legal writing. Maybe I've just grown tired of bashing Twitter. Anyway, the Blog of the LegalTimes is reporting on...
Do men and women judges see the law differently?
Posted on June 05, 2009This is an interesting article from yesterday's New York Times discussing, in light of the Sotomayor nomination, whether gender plays a role in judicial decision-making. Here's an excerpt: [T]he idea that women may inherently view the law differently on occasion...
More Twitter problems - especially for lawyers
Posted on June 05, 2009Why be coy? Let's just declare it open season on bashing the social networking trend du jour. Seems like everyone else has including this report from the Legal Blog Watch noting that not only is Twitter not a good marketing...
On Twitter - "It's a man's world!"
Posted on June 05, 2009According to a new study by Harvard, unlike other social networking sites, men tend to have more followers on Twitter and also tend to have more same gender reciprocal relationships than do women. Further, 90% of Twitter content is generated...
final official report from Lone Star . . .
Posted on June 05, 2009As the day ended and the local/regional participants headed off to the airport to catch their flights home, our participants from states such as New York, Illinois, and Minnesota were invited to choose from one of three West-Texas-themed dinner excursions...
report #8 from Lone Star
Posted on June 05, 2009Our last two presenters of the day spoke on quite different topics: developing an appellate brief problem based on the rules of evidence and the uses and implications of social networking sites. Robert Holland (South Texas College of Law), Building...
report #7 from Lone Star
Posted on June 05, 2009After lunch, Sonia Bychkov Green (at left in photo) and Mary Nagel (at right) (The John Marshall Law School) spoke on "Drop and give me 15 . . . minutes of argument.": Channeling Tom Landry for (Moot Court) Coaching Success....
report #6 from Lone Star
Posted on June 05, 2009Our luncheon speaker was Justice Ann McClure of the 8th Court of Appeals in El Paso. After having mingled with the group since the evening before, she had an excellent sense of her audience! Justice McClure spoke on "Appellate Advocacy...
report #5 from Lone Star
Posted on June 05, 2009Our next two concurrent sessions featured a discussion of academic support and of an integrated LRW program. Marta Miller (Texas Wesleyan) described her presentation as follows: This presentation will introduce and provide instruction on how to implement a one-to-one peer...
report #4 from Lone Star
Posted on June 05, 2009After our break, we had several concurrent sessions. Michaela Cashen of SMU presented on using Word's Table of Authorities feature in brief writing. As she described her presentation, Using Microsoft Word?s automated TOA feature, Michaela Cashen will demonstrate how to...
Global Legal Skills Conference
Posted on June 04, 2009The fourth Global Legal Skills Conference (GLS IV) starts this afternoon at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C. and continues through Saturday. (mew)
Tips for a successful summer clerkship you can pass along to your students
Posted on June 03, 2009These come to us courtesy of the New York Law Journal. As for work assignments, make sure to double and triple check the details. Use spell check and compare assignments to other similar work product in the document management system....
Tech advice - how to deal with corrupt documents
Posted on June 03, 2009This is too technical for me to summarize in a line or two. So if you're interested in learning how to better deal with the dreaded "this document is corrupt" prompt, read on. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
One hi-tech way to enforce the ABA's attendance rule - track students with iPhones
Posted on June 03, 2009One Japanese school is already doing it - using the iPhone's built-in GPS technology to track students' whereabouts and thus prevent absenteeism. Could this be the end of circulating attendance sheets? Read the whole story right here. I am the...
Classroom technology alert: Some profs consider free blogs better alternative to commercial coursepages
Posted on June 03, 2009Most law profs who maintain coursepages use either Westlaw's TWEN product or LexisNexis's Blackboard. Well, some undergraduate profs who also use Blackboard are questioning whether blogs can more efficiently perform the same functions as the stuff made by the big...
Chicago associates think $100k pay cut in exchange for 12 months of guaranteed work is good deal
Posted on June 03, 2009In another sign 'o the economic times for recent law grads, one BigLaw Chicago firm has offered junior associates guaranteed employment for one year as in-house counsel for the firm's clients in exchange for a $100,000 pay cut. As the...
report #4 from Lone Star
Posted on June 03, 2009Saturday morning started off with a trio from Arkansas, Karen Koch, Kim Coats, and Kathryn Sampson, who talked about using a "test issue" to assess students' progress towards writing independence. In their words, How much guidance should a first year...
LWI Conference on Marco Island
Posted on June 03, 2009Marco Island is lovely. It will be a fantastic location for next year's Legal Writing Institute Conference. Proposals for presentations at the 2010 Conference are due in less than two weeks, on June 15, 2009. Click here for an earlier...
chip precedent
Posted on June 02, 2009The Brits are not the only ones interested in the provenance of Pringles. A federal district court held similarly in Potato Chip Institute v. General Mills, 333 F. Supp. 173 (D. Neb. 1971). (Potato chips have institutes? Who knew?) hat...
on the strict construction of "potato chip"
Posted on June 01, 2009It took three levels of British courts to determine that a Pringle is a potato chip, which apparently matters because of taxes. You can read the New York Times report here. And then you can use it to explain to...
Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference
Posted on June 01, 2009Registration is now open for the Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference, which will take place in Portland, Oregon, on August 28 and 29, 2009. The conference organizers are encouraging everyone who plans to attend to please register as soon as...
Do we undermine ourselves by using the term "Legal Writing Profs" rather than "law teachers?"
Posted on May 31, 2009Author of Best Practices in Legal Education and practicum expert (I don't want to call him a "clinician") Professor Roy Stuckie seems to suggest so according to his recent post on the Best Practices for Legal Education blog. As he...
Librarian sues Facebook for failing to protect users from computer viruses
Posted on May 31, 2009It might make a good writing hypothetical if you change the language of the user's agreement to omit the limitation on liability that Facebook includes for purposes of preventing suits like this. Or, you could have students research and write...
The skinny on law school cheating
Posted on May 31, 2009The National Law Journal reports that according to a 2006 study, 45% of law students admit to cheating at least once in the past year. And while, according to this source, the percentage of law students who cheat has remained...
How well do attorneys use technology to "teach" their case to the jury?
Posted on May 31, 2009Trial lawyers, like teachers, are trying to help jurors both understand the case before them as well as persuade jurors that one party's position is the better than the other. If you're with me so far, then you might find...
Challenging the stereotype of male students - "I need love and affection, not the house of correction!"
Posted on May 31, 2009Granted, a white male who raises gender issues is like playing hopscotch in a minefield while blindfolded - it won't take long to set off the explosions. Casting caution to the wind, here's a very interesting story from Inside Higher...
Report #3 from Lone Star
Posted on May 31, 2009After a fajitas dinner, Karen Mika led the group in "Legal Writing Fun and Games." Here is her description of her presentation: This presentation will demonstrate the game "Legal Apples," an offshoot of the popular game "Apples to Apples." In...
report #2 from Lone Star
Posted on May 31, 2009After Rob's presentation, everyone moved to the Lanier Center Atrium for a drinks and TexMex reception, followed by a pre-dinner greeting from Tech's own Dean Walter Huffman. In welcoming everyone, he recalled an incident from his first semester of law...
report from Lone Star
Posted on May 31, 2009The Lone Star Legal Research & Writing Conference started on Friday afternoon with a presentation from Texas Tech's Director of Advocacy Programs, Rob Sherwin. Rob described his program as follows: Moot court is among the oldest of institutions in American...
AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research
Posted on May 31, 2009Did you miss the Spring 2009 Newsletter for the Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research? Click here for a copy! Mark E. Wojcik, Secretary of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research
Judgepedia
Posted on May 30, 2009I'm not quite sure what to make of this. It's a wiki about judges. Click here to visit Judgepedia. (mew)
Graduation: It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye
Posted on May 29, 2009Here's a legal writing hypothetical for you. The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting on the dangers of the traditional mortarboard toss at graduation. Apparently, someone did indeed almost lose an eye as the result of a flying mortarboard. Thankfully,...
Scholarship alert: "Training field supervisors to be efficient and effective critics of student writing"
Posted on May 29, 2009This article, by Professor Bernadette Feeley of U. Suffolk Law School, is from a conference called "Externships 4: A Bridge to Practice." It's available at 15 Clinical Law Review 211 (2009). From the abstract: This article discusses how law student...
Carnegie conference to address legal education reform
Posted on May 29, 2009Yes, We CArNegie: That's the theme and title of a one-day summer conference in Chicago on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at The John Marshall Law School. Designed to bring together scholars, deans, and law professors in doctrinal and skills-based disciplines...
Lex Opus - Free Online Submission of Your Law Review Articles
Posted on May 29, 2009LexOpus is a new service at Washington and Lee Law School offering free online submissions to law journals. Authors can submit articles to all interested law journals, inviting journals to make offers. Journals are able to limit by subject matter...
Arkansas appellate cases going totally--and officially--online
Posted on May 28, 2009A per curiam opinion issued this morning by the Arkansas Supreme Court announces that as of July 1, 2009, appellate opinions issued by that court and the Arkansas Court of Appeals will no longer be printed in official print reporters....
Appraising student work - honesty versus encouragement
Posted on May 28, 2009Ideally, we should do both according to this thoughtful essay that tries to reconcile those who argue a teacher's job - indeed, her professional responsibility - is to offer frank assessment versus those who argue that a teacher's job is...
If you had to do it all over again, would you go to law school?
Posted on May 28, 2009That's the online ABA Journal's question of the week and they are soliciting reader comments here. When I checked earlier this afternoon, the answers seemed to be evenly split. The comments are worth reading. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
The skills new lawyers need to have according to employers
Posted on May 28, 2009I'll give you a hint - writing is one of them. Business development and exposure to international law are others. We had previously reported on this survey conducted by legal recruiters exactly one month ago today, the fact its appearing...
New website devoted to discussing Google's book deal - largest library in history
Posted on May 28, 2009So much controversy surrounds Google's proposal to create an electronic database that includes every book ever written (and I do mean every single book every written in all of human history) that a new website - debuting today - is...
How to Submit a Proposal to the 2010 LWI Conference
Posted on May 28, 2009A reminder! Even though the conference itself is more than a year away, the deadline for proposals is coming up quite soon -- June 15, 2009! Click here to Download the LWI Call for Proposals. (mew) .
A Special Offer From Scribes -- Just for Readers of the Legal Writing Prof Blog!
Posted on May 27, 2009Joe Kimble has extended a special offer to readers of the Legal Writing Prof Blog. He is inviting (or in some cases reinviting) you to join Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers. Scribes is the oldest organization devoted to honoring...
slanty words with numbers after them
Posted on May 26, 2009Not that students think learning legal citation is fun, but geez, is it that bad? (cmb)
Hein Online research videos on YouTube
Posted on May 26, 2009Looking for new ways to teach legal research in electronic media? You will like Hein Online's YouTube channel, featuring videos that demonstrate how to access and effectively use Hein's online collections. One of the recent videos demonstrates a fast way...
conference in Oz
Posted on May 26, 2009The Law and Literature Association of Australia, along with the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand, will be holding a joint conference from December 2 to 5, 2009. The theme is Trans(l)egalité. Information on what that theme...
newest issue of the LWI Journal
Posted on May 25, 2009The latest issue of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute is hot off the presses. Here's the contents: Editor?s Note, Kristin B. Gerdy In Memoriam, Stephanie Feldman Aleong, James B. Levy Remembering Debbie Parker, Steve Johansen Golden Pen Award...
Thomas Blackwell Award Nominations
Posted on May 25, 2009The 2009-2010 Blackwell Awards Committee invites nominations for one of the most prestigious awards in legal writing, the Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing. The deadline for submitting nominations is June 15,...
no questions, please!
Posted on May 25, 2009I have always taught my appellate advocacy students to welcome the Court's questions, for such questions give them an opportunity to clarify their positions and put the judges' minds at ease. Now comes a study (reported by Adam Liptak in...
International Law Institute -- Summer Classes for Law Students Who Speak English as a Second Langugage
Posted on May 25, 2009The International Law Institute in Washington D.C. has announced two courses for its 2009 Summer Orientation program. This year?s program has been revised to include more subjects and has also been redesigned to provide a more interactive training. The program...
Congratulations to Deborah Mann at Albany Law School
Posted on May 25, 2009Deborah Mann (Albany Law School) won Albany Law School's teaching award. The law school announced the award at the law school?s graduation ceremonies in May 2009. Professor Mann is the first Lawyering Professor to win that honor at Albany Law...
punctuation lessons from real life #1
Posted on May 24, 2009Ever on the search for teaching materials, I offer the screen from the personal movie monitor onboard an unnamed airline's flight. (njs)
the storytelling aspect of legal writing
Posted on May 24, 2009New sch olarship by Bret Rappaport, Tapping the Human Adaptive Origins of Storytelling by Requiring Legal Writing Students to Read a Novel in Order to Appreciate How Character, Setting, Plot, Theme, and Tone (CSPTT) Are as Important as IRAC, 25...
How to Submit a Proposal for the 2010 LWI Conference
Posted on May 23, 2009The never-to-be-missed event for teachers of legal writing and research is the Legal Writing Institute national conference. The next one (save the date now!) will be June 27-30, 2010 at Marco Island, Florida. You can now submit a proposal for...
ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago
Posted on May 23, 2009Early bird registration for the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago is available until May 29, 2009. Click here for more information. SCRIBES will also meet during the ABA Annual Meeting. (mew)
U. Colorado fights reinstatement of Ward Churchill
Posted on May 22, 2009No surprise here. The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting that CU formally filed a brief in opposition to Churchill's request to have the judge reinstate him after a jury returned a verdict in his favor finding that he was...
I'm off the grid. Next stop - Las Vegas!
Posted on May 22, 2009I'm taking a brief hiatus from my blogging duties here at the 'ol Legal Writing Prof blog while I relocate for the summer to UNLV where I'll be teaching a couple of courses in their fantabulous LP program along side...
Is there a pile-up in the making between deferred '09 grads and the class of '10?
Posted on May 22, 2009Several legal media outlets are discussing (here, here, and here) what might be the coming pile-up between the '09 law grads who are deferred until 2010 (in some cases until 2011) and current 2L students who are just now beginning...
Another problem with Twitter - fake identities
Posted on May 22, 2009It's a growing problem that is now affecting academics according to this story in the Chronicle of Higher Ed reporting that a couple of imposters (or possibly the same person) set up Twitter accounts in the names of two university...
Some federal judges say law schools need to tell students to drop the "Ally McBeal" look
Posted on May 22, 2009I couldn't tell you what the "Ally McBeal" look is - I've never seen the show. The "Oz" look? Check. The "Sopranos" look? Gotcha'. The "Anderson Cooper 360" look? I'm all over that like white-on-rice. Whatever the "AB look" is...
The liability pitfalls of Twitter
Posted on May 22, 2009We've previously reported on the first defamation suit arising out of Twitter. The Legal Blog Watch has now conveniently compiled a list of Twitter legal foibles that every attorney - and every client - should consider. It includes everything from...
Time Magazine report on the relative happiness of various professions including lawyers, librarians and legal assistants
Posted on May 20, 2009Thanks to our good friends at the Law Librarian blog for this interesting story that, at least with respect to lawyers, seems to confound the conventional wisdom that lawyers are an unhappy lot. Because Mark Giangrande already took the time...
File under "social intelligence" - the why of what we buy
Posted on May 20, 2009Ok, so this story from the NYT called Message in What We Buy but Nobody's Listening has no literal connection to legal writing, as Walter Sobchak might say, but it certainly fits under the rubric of "social intelligence" as well...
William Mitchell faculty "task force" on the future of legal education focuses on "outcome based education"
Posted on May 20, 2009That's a mouthful - but a tasty one nonetheless. According to this very interesting post on the Best Practice in Legal Education blog, the William Mitchell law faculty formed a task force last fall to discuss and study the best...
Professionalism berserk? Partner says few excuses for being unavailable via email
Posted on May 20, 2009Get this - the online ABA Journal is reporting that a partner at a major law firm tells his colleagues that using the email "out-of-office" auto-reply function is almost never acceptable unless, for example, the attorney "is on an international...
Advice for your students about how to deal with that "Ornery Partner"
Posted on May 20, 2009There's an important distinction between an "ornery partner" and an "ornery pard'ner." I reckon that the best way to deal with the latter is to beef him with 'yer Peacemaker. The former? Not so much. Instead, trying killing - um,...
A medical school requires students to buy iPhones - will law schools be next?
Posted on May 20, 2009We reported back on May 10th that the University of Missouri School of Journalism is requiring students to buy iPhones (or the iPod Touch) just as many law schools require students to buy laptops. Now comes this report from the...
Global Legal Skills Conference
Posted on May 20, 2009The fourth Global Legal Skills Conference will be held at Georgetown University Law Center from June 4-6, 2009. Click here for information on the program and registration. (mew)
Microsoft to debut new search engine intended to compete with Google
Posted on May 20, 2009Oh, the irony! Microsoft is now the David to Google's Goliath - at least in terms of search engines. Details are very hush-hush but the Wall Street Journal is reporting (subscription required) that Microsoft is planning to unveil its new...
Business schools offer courses for lawyers to help them become better managers
Posted on May 20, 2009Apparently another sign of the economic times and the evolving law firm business model. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that several business schools are offering courses that cater specifically to lawyers who are interested in becoming better managers or...
Report on panel discussion about how to manage Generation Y in the legal workplace
Posted on May 20, 2009The Idealawg blog is reporting on a continuing blogosphere debate that began at the InsideCounsel's 9th Annual Super-Conference held May 5th to 6th in Chicago. A panel discussion was held on May 5th entitled "Dealing with Gen-Y @ Work." Apparently...
New Zealand court agrees with Australia - service via Facebook is A-OK, mate!
Posted on May 20, 2009In December, we reported on a story in which an Australian court approved service of process through Facebook, making it the first known court to do so. Several months later In an unrelated case, a New Zealand court ruled in...
More about the website Scribd - the writer's "YouTube"
Posted on May 19, 2009Professor Liemer blogged about Scribd a few weeks ago. Now comes this article from the NYT reporting that beginning today, Scribd will allow budding authors to upload their manuscripts to the web and charge those want to read it. The...
Don't include these words in your next contract
Posted on May 19, 2009Kenneth Adams, author of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting (ABA Press 2008) also has a blog called, not-so-surprisingly, AdamsDrafting. Today's entry is a list of wordshe recommends you leave out of your next contract because, among other reasons,...
Professionalism alert - can lawyers ethically mark-up electronic research charges?
Posted on May 19, 2009We reported ten days ago about a lawsuit brought by a client of Chadbourne & Parke alleging that the firm overcharged for electronic research. That story was followed by accusations that the practice is more widespread among law firms than...
One company uses social networking site to hire lawyers
Posted on May 19, 2009The American Lawyer, via the Legal Blog Watch, is reporting that a Houston company, FMC Technologies, is using the legal social networking site Legal OnRamp to hire outside counsel. FMC developed a three-step process, the first of which requires completion...
Advice on how to avoid email typos
Posted on May 19, 2009This is very helpful - a post from the Business Writing Blog on how to avoid those pesky email typos. Rethink your attitude toward proofreading. Proofreading is not a luxury. It's as essential as bread and water. The 45 seconds...
Poll shows undergrads are more stressed yet happier than they were a year ago
Posted on May 19, 2009According to the results of an MTV-Associated Press poll of more than 2,200 students, aged 18 to 24. Generally, the poll found that college students are more worried about finances and finding a job upon graduation but that they are...
The joys and benefits of reading aloud according to this writing teacher
Posted on May 18, 2009Courtesy of Saturday's Op-Ed page of the NYT. Titled Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud, the author, who is a writing teacher, laments not only the loss of a family tradition at home, but also the loss...
The Top 10 iPhone applications for lawyers
Posted on May 18, 2009Who can resist a "Top 10" list? I didn't think so. Life is too short for superfluous emotions like guilt - instead go ahead and indulge yourself courtesy of Above the Law which pulled together this list based on the...
And apparently the Massachusetts' Superior Court Justices have never seen Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Posted on May 18, 2009At least the part about "Bust a deal - face the wheel!" because, according to Above the Law, they just revoked all their clerkships offers leaving a bunch of new law graduates high and dry. Twenty-five new grads who were...
Partners to summer associates - "Welcome to Thunderdome!"
Posted on May 18, 2009Well, not quite - but it's almost that bad according to several sources including the online ABA Journal blog. Among many factors, shorter summer programs give law clerks even less time to prove themselves and thus any mistakes they make...
kudos to Deborah Mann!
Posted on May 18, 2009At its graduation last weekend, Albany Law School announced that Professor Deborah Mann won the school's teaching award this year. She is the first Lawyering Professor to win that honor there. Congratulations Debbie! hat tip: Evelyn Tenenbaum (spl)
when they tell you there's no money ....
Posted on May 16, 2009In these challenging economic times, legal writing professors may be hearing more and more that there's just no money. No money to travel to conferences, no money to hire a teaching assistant, no money to hire the additional faculty that...
newest issue of LWI Journal
Posted on May 15, 2009The latest issue of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute is hot off the presses. Here's the contents: Editor?s Note, Kristin B. Gerdy In Memoriam, Stephanie Feldman Aleong, James B. Levy Remembering Debbie Parker, Steve Johansen Golden Pen Award...
Judge declares mistrial in case where testifying witness texts colleague
Posted on May 15, 2009The online ABA Journal blog is reporting an incident in which a Miami trial judge declared a mistrial after discovering that a witness on the stand was texting a colleague during breaks in testimony. The judge reacted by telling the...
Scholarly journals make the move to Facebook
Posted on May 15, 2009The Boston Globe is reporting that the tony New England Journal of Medicine is following an increasingly common trend among scholarly journals by establishing a presence on Facebook - part of the whole Web 2.0 thing. The NEJM, established in...
A popular press history of West Publishing - public information is big business
Posted on May 15, 2009Citypages, which seems to be the Minneapolis equivalent of the Village Voice, published this very interesting article about West Publications - which it calls "the most powerful company in the history of legal publications." Inside its 2.8 million square foot...
what to do when the power comes back on
Posted on May 14, 2009I promised to blog when I got a cup of hot tea again. Six days almost to the minute that the "inland hurricane" hit, we had power restored. (It can't technically be called a hurricane, because that's a coastal storm...
Proofreading - even the best (and sometimes the worst) mess up
Posted on May 14, 2009Which means, either way, I'm in good company as this item from the Business Writing blog reminds us. Indeed, everyone from an editor at the prestigious National Geographic Magazine (who misspelled "Alaska" as Alaksa) to a check forger (who was...
First schools, now law firms head into cloud computing
Posted on May 14, 2009We reported a few weeks ago that Amazon is offering free cloud computing services to educators. Now this report from the Legal Blog Watch that says the drive to lower law firm overhead is causing law firms to turn skyward...
Stanford experiments with video office hours on Facebook
Posted on May 14, 2009From the Stanford University News Service: At most universities, instructors set aside a few hours each week for students to drop by for conversation. Stanford Open Office Hours is a public version of that tradition, an experiment that will bring...
Economic impact on university life - profs report life is getting more stressful
Posted on May 14, 2009In this column entitled Next Budget Victim? Joy, the Chronicle of Higher Ed reports on the many ways - large and small - the current economic woes are racketing up the stress levels for professors, staff and students. However, some...
Defaults on student loans hit 11 year high but as of yet, no bankruptcy relief
Posted on May 14, 2009So you understand what our students are facing in this large, sometimes cruel world of ours, if they can't find good paying jobs, their student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy - unless and until Congress changes the law. The...
Rules of professional conduct for social networking sites
Posted on May 14, 2009Here's something useful for students and faculty alike. The Legal Blog Watch has taken a list of conduct rules given to Wall Street Journal staffers concerning appropriate behavior on Facebook, Twitter and similar "sites" (are you with me so far?)...
College students may be computer-literate but they are not research-literate
Posted on May 14, 2009According to the librarians interviewed for this story in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Many faculty members, especially senior ones, believe they are less adept at using those tools than their students are. While that much may be true, the...
Sentence diagramming makes a come back - sort of
Posted on May 14, 2009File under "Hey! I remember that!" The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting on a Trinity College (Hartford, Conn.) English Prof who teaches a course in sentence diagramming in a manner that has post-adolescent college students more excited and enthusiastic...
order and authority, one point four
Posted on May 12, 2009Some rules you just shouldn't memorize. (cmb)
One prof's feeble attempt at movie-making
Posted on May 11, 2009This is all John Mollenkamp's fault. He posted a link on Twitter to xtranormal.com, a free site that makes movies out of text you type. Well, there is a bit more to it than that, but not a lot. I...
New study finds no relationship between amount of time spent on Facebook and grades
Posted on May 10, 2009Last month, we reported on a study that found a correlation between the amount of time students spend on Facebook and their grades. Although the researcher denied a causal connection, that qualifier was often lost in some of the reporting...
what to take when the tornado sirens blare
Posted on May 10, 2009Last Friday afternoon, for the first time in months, I had no classes to teach, no meetings to attend, no other scheduled activities to participate in. So I was at home grading papers. The weather was rainy and windy, good...
Advice on how to grade in order to avoid those pesky student appeals
Posted on May 10, 2009Here's some good advice from Inside Higher Ed. about how to minimize the number of students who challenge their grades by communicating expectations more clearly and effectively before those assignments are turned in. One great read on grade appeals is...
Scholarhip alert: "Ex Parte Blogging: The Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy in The Internet Era"
Posted on May 10, 2009This is a very interesting student note in the Stanford Law Review that explores the ethical implications, in light of Kennedy v. Louisiana, of attorneys trying to influence the outcome of a case by blogging about it. As you may...
Claim of widespread overbilling for online legal research causes client freak-out
Posted on May 09, 2009The online ABA Journal is reporting that a former client of Chadbourne & Parke is suing the firm over alleged over-billing practices in connection with Westlaw and Lexis services. The lawsuit claims that the law firm paid a flat rate...
New website for depressed lawyers, judges and law students
Posted on May 09, 2009With two lawyer suicides in the past week seemingly related to lay-offs, this is an unfortunate sign of the times. You can access the website, lawyerswithdepression.com, here. Hat tip to Above the Law. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
A school that requires students to buy iPhones and/or iPod Touch as learning tool
Posted on May 09, 2009OK, so it's the University of Missouri's School of Journalism rather than a law school - but innovation, like opportunity, is where you find it. The idea behind this requirement is that because most students use the devices anyway, making...
transforming legal learning
Posted on May 08, 2009The AALS Section on Academic Support has announcesd its program on Transforming Learning in the Classroom: the 21st Century Law Professor, for the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. The presenters will be: Co-Moderators: Emily L. Randon, UC...
Global Legal Skills Conference IV
Posted on May 07, 2009Here's a reminder about the upcoming Global Legal Skills Conference at Georgetown University Law Center. Click here for information on the program and registration. (mew)
Legal writing, the outlaw biker and death on the interstate
Posted on May 07, 2009OK, so this story has no literal connection to legal writing, as Walter Sobchak might say, but I'm going to tell it anyway. It's an example of how one can be in both the right place, and the wrong place,...
Scribd
Posted on May 07, 2009If you are looking for a quick link to a document, and your usual legal data base and web searches are coming up dry, try going to Scribd. If you want to make a document accessible to the world, this...
Where do I sign up for those law firm deferred start date programs?
Posted on May 07, 2009Not to make you feel bad right before the weekend, but do you realize that BigLaw is paying deferred associates not to work (the going rate is about $5k a month to stay home) more than some of us make...
New legal economy means BigLaw and elite law schools are "out" while regional schools and smaller firms are "in"
Posted on May 07, 2009There are many silver linings in the current legal economic crisis. One that we have repeatedly blogged about is that circumstances are forcing schools to create a greater nexus between the education they offer to students and the demands of...
Professionalism alert: The perils to lawyers (and their staff) who Tweet
Posted on May 07, 2009The Legal Blog Watch contains an interesting editorial about the confidentiality perils of lawyers (or their paralegals, assistants, witnesses and/or experts) who Tweet about their cases. The jumping off point is an article in today's Washington Post about how a...
List of "Top 10" most innovative law schools
Posted on May 07, 2009This one comes to us, once again, from our good friends at the Law Librarian blog. PreLaw Magazine has named the following schools as most innovative based on a survey of law school deans: Chicago Kent, DePaul, Gonzaga, New York...
Demo video of Amazon Kindle DX - see the future of textbooks now!
Posted on May 07, 2009Thanks to our good buddy Joe Hodnicki at the Law Library Blog for tipping me off to this demo video of the newly released Kindle DX. Of course no one knows for sure whether this will become the dominant e-reading...
Some female attorneys claim female superiors are their worst tormentors
Posted on May 06, 2009This is an interesting story. The May issue of The American Lawyer includes an article called The End of Sisterhood discussing the complaint among some female attorneys that female superiors treat them the worst. As the article explains: Over sushi,....
Blackboard buys rival course management software
Posted on May 06, 2009For all you Lexis-Blackboard users out there, you might be interested in this news item. The course management software giant is acquiring a company called Angel Learning that makes a competing software package. You can read the rest of the...
Law schools must create a more practical curriculum to adapt to the new legal marketplace
Posted on May 06, 2009To faithful readers of this blog, "old news is no news." We already know that the convergence of several factors such as the Carnegie Report and the abysmal legal job market are putting tremendous pressure on law schools to better...
Update on Twitter Quitter story - Nielsen responds to critics
Posted on May 06, 2009Earlier this week, my blogleague, Professor Barger, posted a story about the results of a Nielsen survey showing that 60% of Twitter users quit within a month. The Nielsen people took some heat from the Twitter community so they ran...
CALI workshop on "best practices" for social media
Posted on May 05, 2009Social media--that is, sites and applications like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like--bring new ways to connect and communicate with others, but they also bring new challenges. This summer's CALI conference at the University of Colorado (Boulder, CO) has added...
Legal writing professor alleges contract not renewed due to age and gender bias
Posted on May 05, 2009According to Law.com, legal writing professor Rosanne Piatt has filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC alleging that St. Mary's School of Law declined to renew her annual contract due to age and gender discrimination. Professor Piatt's annual contract has...
the jurisprudential essay
Posted on May 05, 2009A form of legal writing not familiar to most U.S. legal writers is the essay on jurisprudence, i.e., an essay on legal philosophy. Volume 58, number 3, of the Journal of Legal Education includes a fascinating article on this writing...
"Multitasking is a myth" declares author of new book on the science of concentration
Posted on May 05, 2009Yup, it's official - students can't buy shoes, "text" friends, do their taxes and learn the Rule Against Perpetuities at the same time. At least according to this new book by author Winifred Gallagher called "Rapt: Attention and the Focused...
LexisNexis: free access to firm-deferred 09 grads in public service
Posted on May 05, 2009LexisNexis has announced that it will provide free database access to qualifying 2009 graduates whose employers have deferred their employment start dates. LexisNexis access will include federal and state cases, codes, regulations, and law reviews. The ASPIRE (Associates Serving Public...
configuring Facebook for greater privacy
Posted on May 05, 2009So you have a Facebook account, and your list of friends is growing. As much as you enjoy reading the news feed with their updates, do you ever worry that when you post what you're doing, you may be revealing...
Ward Churchill asks Colorado judge to reinstate him
Posted on May 05, 2009This is a story we continue to follow - that of the Colorado ethnic studies professor whom a jury concluded was fired in retaliation for his controversial academic writings but whom the University of Colorado claims was terminated due to...
More on Amazon's plans to introduce larger format Kindle
Posted on May 05, 2009Professor Barger reported on this yesterday but if she will indulge me, I think the story is so big, it deserves a second post. The New York Times reported on Monday that Amazon's new Kindle may be released later this...
AALS solicitation for information about ways teachers are enriching their classrooms
Posted on May 05, 2009The Best Practices for Legal Ed. blog is reporting that last Friday, deans received an email from the AALS Standing Committee on Curriculum asking about ways ?ways in which law teachers are enriching their classroom teaching by bringing in background...
Professionalism alert: Unethical for lawyer to use third party to "friend" witness on Facebook
Posted on May 05, 2009This is an interesting "advisory opinion" from the Philadelphia Bar Association's Professional Guidance Committee concluding that it is unethical for a lawyer to hire a third party in order to "friend" the Facebook and/or MySpace profile(s) of a litigation witness...
Brewing controversy - how will law schools report to USNWR the employment status of deferred grads?
Posted on May 04, 2009Thanks to Above the Law for bringing to our attention this story, which is sure to grow larger and more inflammed than, well . . . you can fill in your own metaphor. While this issue just happens to be...
Twitter quitters tried it, didn't like it
Posted on May 04, 2009The Associated Press is reporting that more people are quitting Twitter than are posting messages on the microblogging service. A study shows that more than 60% of Twitter's users in the U.S. have left the service a month later. Why...
a Kindle-r, gentler way to carry law books?
Posted on May 04, 2009So we hear that Amazon has scheduled a press event for Wednesday, April 6, and some say it's to announce the release of a new--and of course, improved--but more importantly, BIGGER Kindle. It's said the bigger format is ideal for...
The pros and cons of social media for lawyers
Posted on May 04, 2009The Legal Blog Watch raises the question whether social media tools are good marketing devices for lawyers or not: After seeing this recent post at Larry Bodine's Lawyer Marketing Blog, I wonder whether we're wasting our time. Bodine points to...
LexisNexis reports security breach resulting in possible loss of personal data for 32,000 users
Posted on May 04, 2009SiliconValley.com is reporting that LexisNexis notified 32,000 customers on Friday that their personal data - including names, birth dates, and social security numbers - may have been improperly accessed by scammers intent on setting up phony credit card accounts...
the demise of the apostrophe?
Posted on May 04, 2009This www.msn.com article asks whether we are seeing the demise of the apostrophe, complete with photos of signs and plentiful examples. After reading a handful of appellate briefs, my answer would be . . . maybe. For some writers, definitely!!...
Professional ethics alert: Lawyers - be careful who you send those emails to.
Posted on May 03, 2009This is an interesting and important post from the Lawyerist blog reminding lawyers of the pitfalls of communicating with clients through their private email accounts if clients access those accounts from their work computers. There has been a growing awareness?and...
send in your LWI conference proposals
Posted on May 01, 2009The website at which you can submit proposals to speak at the 2010 LWI Biennial Conference is live as of today. At that site, you can review the Call for Proposals, see a sample proposal, read about poster presentations, and...
J. ALWD Call for Articles -- The Use of Metaphor and Narrative in Interpreting and Composing Legal Texts
Posted on May 01, 2009The Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (J. ALWD) invites submission of articles for its Fall 2010 Metaphor & Narrative issue. In addition to articles that address the theme, the Journal encourages authors to submit articles on any....
Blackwell Award--Call for Nominations
Posted on May 01, 2009Colleagues and friends of legal writing are invited to submit nominations for one of the most prestigious awards in our field, the Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing. The 2010 winner will...
Ode to the mediocre professor
Posted on May 01, 2009This is an essay called the Mediocre Professor from the Chronicle of Higher Ed that I really like and, actually, find quite touching. In the essay, an English professor at a small, liberal arts college confesses his limitations as a...
The ways legal academics have contributed to tech innovations useful to the practice of law
Posted on May 01, 2009Here's a story from Law.com describing a number of technological innovations originating in law school that have had impact on the practice of law such as a bankruptcy case tracking system begun by St. John's University School of Law and...
It's Law Day - did you forget?
Posted on May 01, 2009I confess - I did. Fortunately, the President didn't as evidenced by this proclamation from the White House which begins: In 1958, President Eisenhower established Law Day as 'a day of national dedication to the principles of government under law.'...
More on USNWR rankings - the discussion continues
Posted on May 01, 2009Thanks to Terri LeClercq and two others who contributed to the discussion we tried to start (here, here and here) about the wisdom and impact of the legal writing specialty program rankings. Four years has now passed since USNWR first...
Amazon offers free cloud computing services to educators
Posted on May 01, 2009To the extent Westlaw's TWEN and Lexis' Blackboard (along with GoogleDocs, among others) are already forms of cloud computing, I'm not sure whether Amazon's service has any advantages that would cause law profs to forego those in favor of this....
job openings at University of San Diego
Posted on May 01, 2009The University of San Diego School of Law will hire two Instructors to teach the legal research, writing, and analysis course--Lawyering Skills I--for the 2009-2010 academic year. These are full-time, non-tenure track faculty positions in a directorless program, whose faculty...
Friday video fun - how not to do a PowerPoint presentation
Posted on May 01, 2009Under the rubric of Friday fun falls this YouTube video poking fun at the common mistakes and pitfalls more commonly known as "death by PowerPoint." Enjoy! Hat tip to Deborah McGovern - Nova law librarian extraordinaire. I am the scholarship...
Summer job tips to pass along to your students
Posted on May 01, 2009The Young Lawyers Blog is offering up the following advice to summer law clerks: Communicate. This is probably the most important tip. If you have questions about a project, ask questions. You are not expected to know everything, but you...
Number of law school applicants up 3.8% according to LSAC
Posted on April 30, 2009This is a story we've been reporting on here, here and here, through all its up and downs. While the number might change, yet again, as of today, this is where it stands. Five schools have reported increases of at...
More letter writing advice - this time it's how to write the killer cover letter
Posted on April 30, 2009Students, especially, take note - these 5 tips come to us from the Let's Talk Turkey blog written by a former headhunter and present resume consultant. This is a good one to pass along to your students during the last...
The best and worst college rejection letters
Posted on April 30, 2009This blog is devoted to effective writing, right? Well, the Wall Street Journal is running a story that collects the best and worst examples of college rejection letters. Read on to learn how to do it right, or wrong, as...
Ferris Bueller's crime spree
Posted on April 30, 2009The film Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Paramount Pictures 1986) continues to provide inspiration for law professors' legal writing assignments and exams. Adjunct Prof David Dirgo contributed a great Bueller-inspired insurance-law memo problem to the Legal Writing Institute's Idea Bank in...
Have wikis, those paradigms of collaborative publishing, lost their mojo?
Posted on April 30, 2009According to one commentator- yes they have. Although Wikipedia is well-established, some analysts argue that the use of wikis in general have lost steam: Just a few years ago, it seemed nearly everyone, in academe and out, was hailing the...
Reader comment(s) about USNWR rankings of legal writing programs
Posted on April 29, 2009As mentioned in earlier posts, we invited your comments about the relatively recent decision by USNWR to include legal writing in its rankings of specialty programs (along with tax, environmental, trial advocacy, healthcare, and IP to name a few). When...
Professor Lisa McElroy receives favorable mention on PrawfsBlawg
Posted on April 29, 2009For her article From Grimm to Glory: Simulated Oral Argument as a Component of Legal Education's Signature Pedagogy, 84 Ind. L.J. 589 (2009). Read the full post here. Hat tip to Professor Marci Rosenthal. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
How to make your class lectures more interactive
Posted on April 29, 2009Here's some very good advice from Inside Higher Ed. I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
Are lawyers using Craigslist to find clients?
Posted on April 29, 2009That's the ABA Journal blog's question of the week. Reader comments are posted here. Presumably, the blog will post the best/most representative comments next week. We'll be sure to let you know when they do. I am the scholarship dude....
Panel of "best lawyers" and deans meet to discuss future of legal education and the profession
Posted on April 29, 2009A panel consisting of the "best lawyers" in America (as determined by their peers) along with a handful of law deans met in Atlanta last Friday to discuss the future of legal education as well as the future of the...
A new hypothesis for the decline in newspaper readership - breakfast on the go
Posted on April 29, 2009This post from the Volokh Conspiracy suggests that one reason for falling newspaper readership may be lifestyle changes resulting in the decline of the 'ol eat-at-home-breakfast routine. Professor Zywicki admits that his hypothesis may be somewhat "far-fetched" and that it's...
Ban the band . . . width, from your vocabulary that is
Posted on April 29, 2009Here's a post you may find interesting courtesy of the Business Writing blog that complains about the word "bandwidth" creeping into the contemporary lexicon. Bandwidth means "the transmissions capacity of an electronic communication device" and thus it's incorrect to say:...
Professionalism alert - second jurisdiction pulls lawyer's license for failure to pay student loans
Posted on April 28, 2009Last week, we reported on a story about a law school grad who passed the New York bar but was denied admission in that state for failing to pay back his student loans. Now comes this story, from our good...
How to handle having your article rejected by a journal
Posted on April 28, 2009If you're a Harvard student, you can always enroll in their course on how to handle rejection. If you're not so lucky (perhaps you're still trying to recover from being rejected by Harvard yourself, years earlier), you may want to...
English and foreign language departments promote men more quickly than women
Posted on April 28, 2009According to this report from Inside higher Ed.: English and foreign language departments promote male associate professors to full professors on average at least a year -- and in some cases, depending on type of institutions, several years -- more...
Survey shows 40% of students applied to law school, in part, to avoid looking for a job
Posted on April 28, 2009The survey also found that 67% of the 1040 respondents said they applied to law school, in part, because of the potential earning power lawyers enjoy. Double-ouch! Um, guys, did you do any research before applying to law school? The...
Facebook loves you after all - so you can now keep what you post
Posted on April 28, 2009Facebook has hemmed and hawed on this issue more than Bill Clinton trying to explain what "sexual relations" means. To follow up on a story we've been covering the past few months (here and here), SiliconValley.com is reporting that Facebook...
finding older posts on Legal Writing Prof Blog
Posted on April 28, 2009Several of our astute readers have contacted us to ask about the blog's defective archive feature, which displays only the last week of the month. The earlier posts have not disappeared into cyberspace, but they require more work to locate....
Black's Law Dicitionary added to iTunes
Posted on April 28, 2009You knew this was coming - West is now making Black's Law Dictionary available through iTunes. That's right, friends, you now have the ability to look up arcane legal expressions on the spot using your iPhone when the judge or...
a picture of Debbie Parker in Ireland
Posted on April 28, 2009Katy Mercer of Case Western sent in a picture of Debbie Parker and her husband (center), along with Steve Johannsen and his wife and Katy's husband and their two girls in Ireland. Katy's comment is listed in the Sunday posting....
Twitter do's and don'ts . . . plus a new Twibe
Posted on April 28, 2009From Steven Matthews on the Canadian legal blog Slaw, here is a great list of considerations, in the form of do's and don'ts, for lawyers (and law students) considering Twitter: A few highlights: Do recommend books and articles that you?ve...
disconnect between USNWR overall rankings and LRW rankings
Posted on April 28, 2009Ken Adams (in his AdamsDrafting blog) has noticed the disconnect between USNWR's overall rankings of law schools and its rankings of legal writing programs. He writes: What you notice immediately is that the rankings for legal writing in no way...
Great quote about writing - it's a classic
Posted on April 28, 2009Among my favorite legal writing quotes are Professor Joe Kimble's oft repeated "Writing is thinking in ink" and William Zinsser's "Fuzzy writing is almost always the result of fuzzy thinking." But here's an earlier variation on the same theme, this...
The most important skills law firms require new grads to possess - writing is among them
Posted on April 28, 2009The New York Law Journal includes a special insert this week devoted to advising 3L's on how to hunt for jobs and what skills they'll need once they bag their prey. One of the articles, What Law Firms Want in...
Professionalism alert - Email etiquette for students along with book recommendation
Posted on April 28, 2009Here's some useful advice you may want to pass along to your students (or even a colleague). It comes to us by way of the career counselor column in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Among the nuggets of wisdom are...
obituary, memorial information for Wake Forest Prof Deborah Parker
Posted on April 26, 2009I join my colleagues on this blog and in the legal writing community in mourning the loss of our good friend Debbie Parker. I got to know Debbie when we served together on the Board of Directors of the Legal...
Debbie Parker
Posted on April 26, 2009Very sad news. Debbie Parker, a law professor, the Director of Legal Research and Writing, and former Associate Dean for Students at Wake Forest University School of Law in North Carolina, died unexpectedly this weekend. She was the wife of...
The blog will remain silent today in remembrance of Professor Deborah Leonard Parker
Posted on April 26, 2009You may leave remembrances in the comment section below or at the Guest Book established by her family. With deepest sympathies to Debbie's family. The blog editors, Jim, Mark, Nancy, Sue, and Coleen. (jbl)
Go (mid)-west young lawyer - they be hirin'!
Posted on April 25, 2009Unlike the coasts, where legal jobs are as scarce as a well-performing mutual fund, the National Law Journal is reporting that things are better in the country's mid-section. Midsize law firms in the Midwest, outside the biggest cities, are hiring...
Twitter the video: Wherein our young hero struggles against the pressure to Twitter.
Posted on April 25, 2009You've got to watch this - a very funny video that pretty much sums up the whole Twitter 'thang for me. If the embedded video below doesn't work, here's the direct link "Pick your next words wisely!" I am the...
USNWR legal writing rankings - love or hate 'em, Deans embrace 'em
Posted on April 25, 2009It hasn't taken long for Deans at those schools with legal writing programs ranked by USNWR to begin touting their place on the list. Here's a partial run-down of press releases: Arkansas-Fayetteville Boston College BYU Drake Lewis & Clark Oregon...
techno-differences
Posted on April 25, 2009If you wonder just how differently Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millenials view and use technology on the job, you can see the results of a LexisNexis survey. hat tip: John Mollenkamp (spl)
LRW at OSU
Posted on April 25, 2009Legal writing veteran, Professor Mary Beth Beazley, has won the Teacher of the Year award at Ohio State University's law school. And former legal writing teacher, Monte Smith, has won the Staff Member of the Year award at the same...
Looks like Facebook doesn't want you that much after all
Posted on April 24, 2009Following up on a story we blogged about in February called Facebook wants you! (to help them draft a user's bill of rights) in which the social networking giant asked its members draft a new user's agreement following a PR...
Maira Kalman illustrated tribute to Justice Ginsburg
Posted on April 24, 2009This one comes to us from Professor Mary Beth Beazley - a NYT's piece called "And the Pursuit of Happiness" which is a tribute to Justice Ginsburg and other women who have fought for the rights of others. Written and...
Scholarship alert: "Using feedback theory to help novice legal writers develop expertise"
Posted on April 24, 2009This one comes to us from Professor Sheila Rodriguez a clinical professor at Rutgers-Camden and is available at 86 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 207 (2009). . From the abstract: The theoretical premise is that students are more likely to...
Scholarship alert for students: "How to Create a Writing Sample"
Posted on April 24, 2009My good buddy Professor Gabe Teninbaum at Suffolk tipped me as follows: A colleague of mine, Prof. Herb Ramy (he directs the Academic Support Program at Suffolk), has posted a piece on "How to Create a Writing Sample" on SSRN....
Top 100 recommended Twitter feeds for law students
Posted on April 24, 2009The list covers a range of those who Tweet including law students, law profs, law schools, librarians, law firms, individual attorneys, and even paralegals. You can make up your own snarky comment for this post. Hat tip to Deborah McGovern,...
I'm not one to judge, but even judges make typos - and this one is a whopper
Posted on April 24, 2009I don't want to judge, um, a judge when it comes to typos because I've been known to make a few myself but this one is a real boner. A Michigan trial judge forgot to include a "not guilty" option...
Harvard offers course for students on how to take rejection
Posted on April 23, 2009Hey kids, save your tuition dollars and come see me - I'll give you a Ph.D in rejection. If this story wasn't true, you might think it came from The Onion instead of the Boston Globe. Here's an excerpt: The...
Return of the living dead - more about disappearing websites
Posted on April 23, 2009This is the story that just won't die. Silver bullets, wooden stakes . . . nothing seems to work. If you follow this blog at all (and who doesn't?), you know that we've reported several stories in the past week...
An inspirational story of how a teacher can have a profound impact on the lives of students
Posted on April 23, 2009This one comes to us from one of our favorite readers, the redoubtable Chris Wren. It's a story about how a college professor's brief encounter with a high school student inspired and changed that student's life forever. Here's Chris' explanation...
Video project documents the lives of eight 1L's as they make their way through law school
Posted on April 23, 2009This sounds amazing - like the Michael Apted "Up" series but focusing instead on law students. I wish I had the time to preview it for you (too busy Twittering, I guess). Maybe some of you can leave your thoughts...
NYT Op-Ed: "To Tweet or not to Tweet?"
Posted on April 23, 2009Here's my 2 cents on the whole Twitter 'thang: What, you're not already busy enough dealing with daily tidal waves of email, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, blogging, eBay, Zappos, Amazon, work, family, friends not to mention reality TV and keeping up...
legal writing in the "postprint era"?
Posted on April 23, 2009I had to laugh (and cry a little) when I read Robert Lanham's satiric course description and syllabus on Timothy McSweeney's website. The course, titled "Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era," is geared for the 21st-century "minimalist" whose favored...
Observations of a Would-Be Juror
Posted on April 23, 2009It arrived in the mail a few days ago, a summons for jury service. In my state, jurors are selected for a four-month term during which they are obligated to serve in the venire as many as ten times. That...
Professionalism alert: Yes, Virginia, you can get fired for posting on Twitter and Facebook during personal time
Posted on April 23, 2009Every law student should know the answer to this one, says our good buddy Mitchell Rubinstein over at the Adjunct Law Prof Blog, but how many actually do? Here's the rest of Mitchell's post: [S]ome employees out there might be...
ATL's David Lat on Fox News talking about the plight of laid-off attorneys and deferred 3L's
Posted on April 23, 2009Above the Law has been a very good friend to this blog - so we're excited and pleased to provide you with the link below to David Lat's, ATL's founder and editor, recent interview on Fox Business News discussing the...
On the lighter side - bra deflects bullet, saves woman's life!
Posted on April 23, 2009I've heard of a bullet bra but never a bra stopping a bullet until this headline (which sounds straight out of the New York Post but instead comes to us from the Motorcity). Here's the full story from the Detroit...
Fear and loathing in the law firm - the new legal economy
Posted on April 23, 2009The title of this online ABA Journal Blog article says it all: "Fearful Associates Opt for Partner Face Time Over Work at Home." Can you guess why they are afraid to not be seen as much as possible at the...
Scholarship alert: "Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals"
Posted on April 23, 2009Professors Nancy Levit and Allen Rostron at UMKC School of Law alerted me to the fact that they have just updated their 2008 article on submitting scholarship to law reviews. As Professor Levit tells me: This [article] contains information about...
USNWR's methodology for ranking legal writing programs - your comments welcomed
Posted on April 23, 2009There's obviously a lot of interest in the specialty rankings among legal writing folks since the 'ol site-meter nearly blew a gasket this past week recording all the "edu" hits after we leaked the top 10 list on Monday and...
Stetson hosting a legal writing-discourse colloquium
Posted on April 22, 2009According to the Legal Scholarship Blog, Professor David Ritchie of Mercer School of Law has organized a colloquium at Stetson School of Law called Legal Writing: Gateway to the Legal Discourse Community. I don't know anything more about it than...
U. Texas begins its own program to help 3L's in their job search
Posted on April 22, 2009We reported earlier this week on the innovative program begun by UCLA School of Law to teach 3L students practice skills in order to give them a leg-up in this extremely difficult job market. Well, UT just launched its own...
Budget crunch in Nevada results in departure of UNLV law faculty
Posted on April 22, 2009The Las Vegas Sun ran a story today reporting the departure of at least three professors from William S. Boyd School of Law, including legal writing Prof and a friend of this blog, Michael Higdon, due to a proposed 36%...
New "plain-English" online scholarly journal by conglomerate of top law schools is launched
Posted on April 22, 2009The legal blogosphere is all a twitter (no pun intended) over a new online journal begun by the law reviews of seven top schools - Stanford Law Review, New York University Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown...
USNWR - Full list of legal writing program rankings
Posted on April 22, 2009This is official - obtained from USNWR's website: 1 Seattle University Seattle, WA 2 Mercer University (George) Macon, GA 3 University of Nevada--Las Vegas (Boyd) Las Vegas, NV 4 John Marshall Law School Chicago, IL 5 Stetson University Gulfport, FL....
the admissibility of Wikipedia
Posted on April 22, 2009Wikipedia Too Malleable to Be Reliable Evidence By Mary Pat Gallagher New Jersey Law Journal April 22, 2009 A New Jersey judge who allowed a lawyer to plug an evidentiary gap with a Wikipedia page has been reversed on the...
overheard at oral argument
Posted on April 22, 2009Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about the constitutionality of a strip search of a 13-year-old girl in school; another student had accused her of bringing ibuprofen to school. Under consideration was whether a female...
recently published
Posted on April 22, 2009Blog readers may be interested in these articles recently published by legal writing professors at Stetson and Rutgers-Camden in the Loyola Law Review: Joan Catherine Bohl, Generations X and Y in Law School: Practical Strategies for Teaching the "MTV/Google" Generation,...
newly tenured
Posted on April 21, 2009Hearty congratulations to Kate Bohl (at left) and Stephanie Vaughn (at right), who have just been awarded programmatic tenure at Stetson. Way to go! hat tip: Darby Dickerson (via Twitter) (cmb)
Strunk & White redux
Posted on April 21, 2009In case you were busy celebrating a religious holiday or two at the end of last week and missed NPR's send-up of The Elements of Style, you can still find it here. hat tip: Sam Jacobson (spl)
Scholarship alert: The subject that won't die! Disappearing websites and what to do about them.
Posted on April 21, 2009Folks, this topic appears to be harder to kill than a zombie in a George Romero movie - what to do about web authority that may go AWOL before the court decides your case. We reported on this story last...
Scholarship alert: "Law Firm Legal Research Requirements for New Attorneys"
Posted on April 21, 2009Thanks to our very good buddies at the Law Librarian blog for tipping us to this new article by Associate Library Director Patrick Meyer of Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Here's the abstract: This article collects in one place the...
Videogames prove addictive - literally - what are implications for classroom surfing?
Posted on April 21, 2009Here's an interesting story from yesterday's Washington Post reporting that researchers have concluded that approximately 1 in 10 some video-gamers show symptoms of addictive behavior that can interfere with life activities and lead to "lying to family and friends about...
Law student who didn't pay back college loans denied admission to New York bar
Posted on April 21, 2009This story comes to us from our very good buddy Professor Mitch Rubinstein at the Adjunct Law Prof blog. According to Professor Rubinstein: [The] moral of this case is that law students should expect to be required to pay back...
Role play games used to predict future of BigLaw practice and it ain't pretty
Posted on April 21, 2009The online ABA Journal blog is reporting on role playing game experiment last weekend at Indiana's Maurer School of Law led by Professor Bill Henderson whose expertise is in the empirical analysis of the legal profession and legal education. Here...
National media picks up story of law schools trying to help deferred 3L's
Posted on April 21, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed is running a story on the problem 3L law students are having either finding work or the financial strain to them caused by start dates that have been deferred until 2010 and what law schools...
China-U.S. Conference on Legal Information and Law Libraries
Posted on April 20, 2009The inaugural China-United States Conference on Legal Information and Law Libraries is scheduled for 27-30 May 2009 in Beijing. Click here for more information. Hat tip to the International Association of Law Libraries. (mew)
A Course in Istanbul for International Law Librarians
Posted on April 20, 2009The International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) will hold its 28th annual course on international law librarianship in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 11-15, 2009. Click here for more information in a post on the Law Librarian Blog. Hat tip to...
Here's an essay you might find helpful: "Building a better lecture."
Posted on April 20, 2009OK, lectures are supposed to be as passe as analog TV - so, like, last week. But the reality is that all professors still have to lecture from time to time in order to impart some foundation principles, provide important...
USNWR "Top 10" legal writing programs leaked
Posted on April 20, 2009This list comes to us from our good buddy Professor Paul Caron at the TaxProf Blog. I can't independently verify the list, but Professor Caron says it's appears legitimate. Here it is: Seattle Mercer UNLV John Marshall (Chicago) Stetson Oregon...
The magic moment when the blog broke 200,000 - photos included
Posted on April 20, 2009Although Professor Wojcik posted earlier today about this blog breaking the magic 200,000 hits/300,000 page views mark, I wanted all of our faithful readers to be able to share with us the excitement we felt as we watched the site-meter...
UCLA creates new "Transition to Practice" skills course for jobless graduates
Posted on April 20, 2009This is a great idea and kudos to Dean Michael Schill at UCLA for spearheading an approach that not only responds to the (we hope) temporary economic circumstances facing new law grads but also addresses concerns raised by the Carnegie...
A primer on "deep web research" - you need to know this.
Posted on April 20, 2009Ever hear the phrase "deep research" before? I hadn't until I read this post from the Legal Intelligencer via Law.com. "Deep research" is about accessing information within the "deep web" which is the part of the world wide web that...
The thrill of grading, the agony of da' valuations (student evals, that is)
Posted on April 20, 2009It's that time of year again - when legal writing profs across the land immerse themselves in the end-of-the-semester grading marathon (some think of it instead as the pen and paper version of the "Bataan Death March"). And with the...
Our 200,000th Visitor!
Posted on April 19, 2009The Legal Writing Prof Blog celebrated its 200,000th visitor earlier today. The visitor (we are not sure WHO you are, but it was someone from the United States) was drawn to our blog by a post (from March 2008) on...
The Lawyer's Editing Manual
Posted on April 18, 2009If you are a legal writing professor looking for a reference book for students who need help with basic writing matters -- which pretty much describes every legal writing student at some moment in time -- try The Lawyer's Editing...
ah, the lowly comma
Posted on April 18, 2009Over on his Literary Legs blog, Ben Opipari recently reported a US District Court case, in which an English professor testified about the placement of a comma and the omission of a coordinating conjunction. Despite objections from opposing counsel, this...
transforming law schools at next SALT conference
Posted on April 18, 2009The Society for Law Teaching (SALT) has announced its next conference, on Teaching in a Transformative Era: The Law School of the Future, will take place December 10-11, 2010, at the University of Hawai?i in Honolulu. The conference will examine...
courage award
Posted on April 18, 2009The Awards Committee of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) has announced a call for nominations for the Terri LeClercq Courage Award for 2009. Any member of LWI may nominate someone for the award. Submit nominations directly to Susan Thrower at...
Practice pointer - how to handle citations to those pesky, disappearing websites
Posted on April 17, 2009A few days ago, we posted about a potential problem facing attorneys who cite to online authority - it can disappear! And, indeed, it actually happened in this Florida appellate decision that cited to the website Encarta which will soon...
Vote for the best law school talent show video at ATL
Posted on April 17, 2009The good people over at Above the Law are running a contest to vote for the best law school talent show video of the past year. We noted a couple of the contenders earlier this week but after hours and...
The job numbers are grim for 3L's
Posted on April 17, 2009This blurb from Law.com pretty much says it all: The nation's law schools will spit out about 43,000 graduates next month, with roughly half of those lawyer-hopefuls expecting to take jobs in private practice. They will be entering an employment...
Some helpful tips from a partner to the associate on how to handle writing assignments
Posted on April 17, 2009Here's some good advice you may want to impart to your students as they get ready to head off to their first summer job on how to handle research memo requests from the assigning attorney. As some of us remember...
Sorry folks, we may be stuck with law school rankings for a while
Posted on April 17, 2009Given that USNWR rankings are due out next week, the timing of this story is quite appropriate. The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting on a conference held last week at Wake Forest called "Rethinking Admissions" during which several participants...
Professor Linda Edwards' appointment at UNLV is official
Posted on April 17, 2009The William Boyd School of Law issued a press release today confirming that Linda Edwards' appointment as Professor of Law will commence in July, 2009. Until this point, Professor Edwards, originally a tenured professor at Mercer, has been a visitor....
Spring 2009 Newsletter for the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research
Posted on April 16, 2009The Spring 2009 Newsletter of the Association of American Law School's Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research has just been published. To see a copy of it, click here to see the section's page on the AALS website, and...
Overdue library book finally returned, um, 52,858 days late.
Posted on April 16, 2009Ouch! I'd hate to pay the late fees on this one. The Washington and Lee University News is reporting that a Union soldier took a book on June 11, 1864 from the Washington College (as it was then known) library...
Is I.Q. nature or nurture? More of the latter than we once thought says new book.
Posted on April 16, 2009This is a truly interesting Op-Ed piece from today's NYT entitled How to Raise Our I.Q.that discusses new research into the roots of "traditionally" measured intelligence. Here's an excerpt: While [the] view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely...
New online ABA Journal poll: What grammar or style conventions do you disagree with?
Posted on April 16, 2009In honor of the 50th Anniversary of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, the ABA Journal online blog is asking readers the following questions: 1. What persistent grammar or style conventions do you regularly see in others' writing and...
Undergraduate course teaches students effective study skills and motivation
Posted on April 16, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting on an undergraduate skills course that purports to teach students how to ?manage their lives.? Along with the typical "array of note-taking and reading-comprehension tips," the course also covers "less-familiar lessons designed to...
A potential problem citing to online authority - it disappears.
Posted on April 15, 2009The blog Abstract Appeal notes a potential problem lurking in all cites to virtual authorities that is underscored by Microsoft's recent decision to scuttle Encarta - the underlying authorities may simply vanish. It can happen. Last month, {Florida's] Fifth District...
Scholarship alert: new book discussing academic freedom
Posted on April 15, 2009Two law professors, Robert C. Post - the David Boies Professor of Law at Yale, and Matthew W. Finkin - the Albert J. Harno and Edward W. Cleary Chair in Law at the University of Illinois, have just published a...
Another large firm managing partner declares BigLaw "has changed forever."
Posted on April 15, 2009The ABA Journal Blog is reporting that Womble Carlyle, a 530 lawyer firm in the Southeast and Atlantic regions, is cutting pay an average of 10% beginning today. The pay cut is tied to performance meaning that some attorneys will...
North Carolina students give moot court argument before US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts
Posted on April 15, 2009If you think your students get the jitters before their moot court arguments, think of the pressure on these students at North Carolina Central University who yesterday argued their case before Chief Justice John Roberts. One student revealed her secret...
USNWR ranks part-time legal programs for first time - top 5 available online now.
Posted on April 15, 2009The official USNWR rankings are just around the corner. To whet your appetite in the meantime, below is a video report from the U.S. News Editor Brian Kelly announcing the first ever rankings of part-time legal programs. Who made the...
Number of unemployed lawyers hits 20,000, BigLaw losses hit 10k mark
Posted on April 15, 2009The Department of Labor reported on Monday that the number of unemployed lawyers jumped to 20,000 last year - a 66% increase from the previous year and the highest figure in ten years. Over at LawShucks.com, which has been keeping...
ABA Journal online announces top "Peep" awards!
Posted on April 14, 2009We reported over the weekend that the online ABA Journal has been holding a contest to select the best law related diorama(s) featuring those Easter marshmallow treats from yore, "Peeps." The reader votes have now been tallied and the winning...
Another trend of the new legal economy - clients ban 1Ls from work
Posted on April 14, 2009The ABA Journal Blog is reporting today that a new trend is emerging in the legal marketplace - clients are requesting, or outright banning, 1Ls from working on their matters. It's all about clients wanting "value" according to one large...
Parts I & III of the Chronicle of Higher Ed series on student plagiarism
Posted on April 14, 2009A few days ago, we told you about a story in the Chronicle of Higher Ed called Colleges Sharpen Tactics for Resolving Academic-Integrity Cases. It was the second part of a three part series on student plagiarism at the university...
Bluebook - the movie! "The bloody tale of one BB's revenge!" and other coming attractions
Posted on April 14, 2009This is really funny. A trailer for a Bluebook-slasher film. You'll never want to look up cites in the dark again! Brought to you by the good students at Cardozo Law School. Below is a link to another student talent...
debunking Strunk & White
Posted on April 13, 2009If you are of a certain age, you may have a well-thumbed edition of Strunk & White's Elements of Style on your book shelf. And perhaps, after filing your taxes on April 15th, you were planning to celebrate the 50th...
international legal citations
Posted on April 13, 2009Aspen Publishing has announced the publication of the second edition of its Guide to Foreign and International Legal Citations. This book is a lifesaver for lawyers and scholars citing non-U.S. legal sources. The ALWD Citation Manual focuses on citation of...
ALWD - LWI summer scholarship grants awarded
Posted on April 13, 2009Here's news of scholarship that hasn't even been created yet: The Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute have announced the recipients of their summer 2009 scholarship grants: Carrie Sperling Shooting Ourselves in the Foot: Are Lawyers'...
job opening in Chicago
Posted on April 13, 2009The DePaul University College of Law is taking applications for the full-time position of Instructor of Legal Analysis, Research, and Communication beginning August 2009. DePaul's LARC program includes some specialized sections in which students with an interest in Family Law,...
The professionalism door swings both ways, Judge gets sanctioned for yelling at attorneys
Posted on April 13, 2009Turnabout is fair play, is it not? Last week we told you about the attorney who was disbarred for a year because he spoke harshly over the phone to a judicial clerk. Today comes a story that a Washington state...
Five legal job trends emerging from current recession that might become permanent
Posted on April 13, 2009LawJobs.com is predicting that five trends to emerge from the present legal job market might become permanent after the current woes are behind us- and some of them are not good news for law grads. Here are the predictions: 1....
Researchers find students who spend a lot of time on Facebook have significantly lower grades, or not.
Posted on April 13, 2009The London Times, oddly enough, is reporting on a new studyby U.S. researchers who polled 219 undergraduate and graduate students about their Facebook habits. Not so surprisingly, the study found that the more time students spend on Facebook, the less...
In honor of Easter - ABA Journal runs "Peeps in Law" contest
Posted on April 12, 2009On the lighter side, the ABA Journal blog has been holding a contest that invites readers to create law related dioramas using Peeps. What are "Peeps" you ask? You remember, you really do - they're those brightly colored marshmallow treats...
Universities employ a variety of methods to deal with student plagiarism
Posted on April 12, 2009This is an interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, entitled Colleges Sharpen Tactics for Resolving Academic-Integrity Cases that discusses various models schools use to handle student plagiarism cases including the traditional honor court (usually comprised of students and...
Problems with PACER - public must still pay for public domain dox
Posted on April 12, 2009Although PACER (Public Access to Electronic Court Records) is supposed to provide easy access to court documents, several critics have argued that the fee schedule not only defeats Congressional intent to make such documents available to the public, but is...
Global Legal Skills IV Conference at Georgetown University Law Center
Posted on April 11, 2009Click here to see the program and speakers at the fourth Global Legal Skills Conference, which will be held June 4-6, 2009 at Georgetown University Law Center. You'll also find links with information on registration, hotels, and photos from the...
Harvard researchers find academics "game" SSRN downloads - envy, not money, is the motive
Posted on April 11, 2009This is a really interesting "working paper" called Demographics, Career Concerns or Social Comparison: Who Games SSRN Download Counts? in which two Harvard B-school profs, Benjamin Edelman and Ira Larkin, seek to determine whether academics "game" their download counts on...
It's tough writing for student newspapers these days - dead deer left at editor's door
Posted on April 10, 2009Two days ago we told you about the unfortunate editor of the BYU student newspaper who made a typo that he described as "the worst mistake" of his life resulting in the recall of almost 20,000 papers. Today comes an...
Organization of university profs supports Ward Churchill's reinstatement
Posted on April 10, 2009Inside Higher Ed is reporting that the American Association of University Professors ("AAUP") has issued a statement on April 7, 2009 requesting that the University of Colorado reinstate Ward Churchill following last week's successful jury verdict. The statement reads as...
good news from Texas Tech
Posted on April 10, 2009Texas Tech Legal Practice Professors Rosemary Dillon and Kim Phillips were approved by the law faculty for long-term retention and promotion last fall; now it's official! Their paperwork has made its way through the main-campus approval process, and the provost...
lawyers: follow the rules and proofread!
Posted on April 10, 2009To pique your interest, an excerpt from a recent opinion from the Wisconsin Court of Appeals--the bold is the court's language: ¶13 Hudec?s problems in this court do not stop with his ignoring the rules of appellate practice. In the...
How about putting together unemployed lawyers with broke clients who need legal help?
Posted on April 10, 2009This story from today's New York Times called "In a Downturn, More Act as Their Own Lawyer" is a telling sign of how messed up the legal marketplace, and the economy in general, is right now. Because of home foreclosures...
Pointers to help students overcome their fear of public speaking
Posted on April 10, 2009This might make a good hand-out around oral argument season which, if I'm not mistaken, is in full swing right now. The advice comes from Joey Asher, a self-described "communication and selling skills coach," who maintains a website called "Speechworks...
Author of "Best Practices for Legal Education" endorses innovative 3L practicum
Posted on April 10, 2009This item by Roy Stuckey posted on the Best Practices for Legal Education blog describes how Washington and Lee is attracting lots of cash, students and top practicum faculty as the result of an innovative curriculum change that turns the...
Professionalism alert: Louisiana attorney disbarred for one year for yelling at law clerk
Posted on April 10, 2009The Fifth Circuit in an unpublished decision just affirmed a federal district court's decision to disbar an attorney for one year because he spoke harshly to a law clerk during a telephone call. Other contributing factors were the attorney's "misrepresentations...
For those who like crossword puzzles
Posted on April 10, 2009I bet these are tough - but a good exercise if you need to bone up on arcane Latin phrases and such. It's a weekly Legal Crossword Puzzle hosted by the Daily Report blog. A new one appears each Friday...
Scholarship alert: "Moving from first to final draft: offering autonomy- supportive choices to motivate students to internalize the writing process"
Posted on April 10, 2009The above article, authored by Professor Carol Wallinger of Rutger-Camden, appears in 54 Loy. L. Rev. 820 (2008). From the introduction: This [a]rticle discusses a year-long project I conducted during the 2006-2007 school year of nineteen first-year law students...
Check this video Holmes! - scientists raise the bar again on innovative teaching
Posted on April 10, 2009A few days ago, we blogged about a really interesting teaching idea pioneered by science professors seeking to help their students learn a difficult concept by having them draw it. The technique is called "Picturing to Learn." The post resulted...
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...
Scholarship alert: Tapping the Human Adaptive Origins of Storytelling by Requiring Legal Writing Students to Read a Novel in Order to Appreciate How Character, Setting, Plot, Theme and Tone (CSPTT) are as Important as IRAC
Posted on April 02, 2009Wow - that's a mouthful, but this one is sure to melt in your brain, not in your hands. Authored by Professor Bret Rappaport, a partner in private practice who is also an adjunct legal writing professor at DePaul, it's...
Ward Churchill case goes to the jury
Posted on April 02, 2009By way of update, the Ward Churchill case was sent to the jury yesterday following closing arguments by both parties. As we previously reported, students from the University of Denver's School of Law have been blogging the case here and...
It's official - The NYT says "It's Time to Rethink the Legal Profession"
Posted on April 02, 2009We've been saying it for months on this blog, now the New York Times adds its imprimatur to the growing number of commentators who recognize that we may be heading towards a ?a paradigm-shifting, blood-in-the-suites? change in everything from the...
The "stoned professor" update
Posted on April 02, 2009A few days ago, we reported on the pitfalls of videotaping one's class to the extent it winds up on YouTube. To cement the point, we also blogged about a University of Florida professor who was apparently fired for appearing...
Ward Churchill wins - jury awards him $1
Posted on April 02, 2009This just in - the jury has returned a verdict for Professor Ward Churchill, awarding him $1 in damages. According to a law student blog, the judge has yet to rule on whether he will be reinstated to his former...
Spring 2009 issue of The Law Teacher is out now
Posted on April 02, 2009Published by the Law Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, The Law Teacher is a twice yearly online publication that, according to its mission statement, "provides a forum for ideas for improving teaching and learning in law schools and informs...
green legal writers
Posted on April 01, 2009Of course the first ever green legal writing conference is being held in the Pacific Northwest! Lewis & Clark Law School and the University of Oregon School of Law have teamed up to bring us a conference with the theme:...
workshop for new legal writing profs
Posted on April 01, 2009AALS has announced this year's Workshop for Beginning Legal Writing Teachers, June 20 - 21, in Washington, D.C. You can attend just this workshop or arrive a couple of days earlier and attend the workshop geared at all new law...
job opening in L.A.
Posted on April 01, 2009Loyola Law School-Los Angeles is taking applications for one full-time, non-tenure track position as an Associate Clinical Professor for the 2009-10 academic year, to teach the legal writing component of two sections of required first-year Legal Research and Writing and...
37,000+ Visits and 50,000+ Page Views
Posted on April 01, 2009The Legal Writing Prof Blog is HOT! In March we had more than 37,000 visits and more than 50,000 page views. Thanks, blog readers! We appreciate your visits. Nancy, Sue, Coleen, Mark, and Jim
If April is the cruelest month, March was no walk in the park either
Posted on April 01, 2009Especially if you're an attorney. After the dust settled in the month just passed, you could add another 3,500 attorneys and staff to the funeral pyre. All told, 7,000 have lost their jobs since January 1 and as we reported...
Martindale-Hubbell jumps into the online social networking game
Posted on April 01, 2009And why not? Everyone else is doing it including the ABA's Legally Minded as well as a brand new social networking site just for law students called Advanced Advocates. The launch of M-H Connected is intended to, according to its...
BigLaw managing partners pessimistic about year ahead - tough times not over yet
Posted on March 31, 2009Buckle up, folks, there's still plenty of turbulence ahead. According to Citi's private banking law division which has "for more than a quarter-century . . . analyzed the fiscal performance of law firms annually," managing partners at large firms are...
And you thought she was just taking notes . . .
Posted on March 31, 2009Some of our law students are writing across the curriculum. That is, they are writing in all their classes. Problem is, they are writing novels, not briefs, memos, or contracts. The ABA Journal reports that a Wake Forest law student...
inaugural issue of LRWPROF-L Community News
Posted on March 31, 2009The Legal Writing Prof Blog is happy to host the inaugural issue of the LRWPROF listserv's newsletter. Download it here: Download Lrwprof_Newsletter_Vol1_Issue_1_033109 And here is a message from the newsletter editors: A NEW NEWSLETTER FOR A CHANGING PROFESSION The emergence...
Guess what? Visual learners really do think in pictures
Posted on March 31, 2009It comes as no news (at least it shouldn't) to any classroom teacher worth their salt that each student has a different learning style. Some are visual learners, some are kinesthetic learners, some aural, etc. So, you're now thinking to...
Eric Holder is right - we are cowards
Posted on March 31, 2009At least according to this very thoughtful excerpt from a book by the late Professor Paul Lyons reprinted in Inside Higher Ed. We had reported earlier that another new book suggests that university faculties, in general, have become more timid...
Journal of African Communications
Posted on March 30, 2009This may be of interest to our readers who are members of APPEAL. The Journal of African Communications welcomes articles for possible publication. Contact Andy Alali in the Department of Communications at California State University in Bakersfield, California...
The library of the future - don't count books out just yet.
Posted on March 30, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting an interesting debate going on at Stanford over what the research library of the future should look like. The discussion is the result of the administration's decision in 2007 to tear down the...
Be careful when you Tweet - first Twitter lawsuit hits the courts
Posted on March 30, 2009The ABA Journal is reporting that singer Courtney Love is being sued by a fashion designer for allegedly defamatory statements Ms. Love made about the plaintiff on Twitter and Facebook. I guess it was only a matter of time before...
New online social networking site just for law students
Posted on March 30, 2009The Shark is reporting the launch of yet another social networking site called Advanced Advocates which hopes to be to law students what Facebook is to undergraduates. It's being touted as "a one-stop hub for briefs, outlines, student employer reviews,...
more information about Lone Star
Posted on March 29, 2009Thinking about attending the Lone Star Legal Writing Conference at Texas Tech on May 29-30? Get more information and register by going to http://www.law.ttu.edu/op/rwc/event_details.asp. And keep checking back . . . the final schedule of presentations will be posted in...
Bar journal alert: "Using Microsoft Word's Readability Program"
Posted on March 29, 2009Way back in time - like, last summer - when I was given the scholarship beat for this blog, I put out a call that if you had a new article you'd like me to mention, send me an email...
Lou Sirico Explains How Muddied Writing Can Cause Problems
Posted on March 28, 2009Louis J Sirico, Jr., a professor of law and director of the legal writing program at Villanova University School of Law (and while we're at it, he was also the Immediate Past Chair of the AALS Section on Legal Writing...
jargon vs. gibberish
Posted on March 28, 2009In yesterday's post on the Marquette University Law School faculty blog, Professor Jessica Slavin unpacks for us the difference between jargon and gibberish, as she explores The Concise Gibberish of the Law. As with many things in this life, the...
Follow up to new book on the mechanics of decision-making
Posted on March 28, 2009Back in December, we reported on a then forthcoming book on the neuroscience of decision-making which should be of interest to any law school professor who teaches persuasion. Last Sunday's New York Times book review contained a very favorable review...
Don't try this at work! At home? Maybe.
Posted on March 28, 2009Apropos to our blog entry a few days ago about the downside of taping one's class, this YouTube video pretty much cements the point. After this tape surfaced on the Internet, this University of Florida business professor was promptly fired...
UR RSS feeds
Posted on March 28, 2009So how well are you using RSS feeds? If you're not sure, you likely will appreciate Professor Diane Murley's article on The Power of RSS Feeds. And if you don't even know what an RSS feed is, her article is...
Beware the pitfalls of videotaping your classes
Posted on March 27, 2009Several law professors now tape their classes and make those videos available to students on school websites or through iTunes. However, this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education points out that when you tape a class, you expose to...
just a test
Posted on March 27, 2009Let's see if we can get Stevie Wonder's performance of "Superstition" on Sesame Street to work as an embedded video. Enjoy. We'll take it down on Saturday. (cmb)
Guide to low-cost and free online legal research tools
Posted on March 27, 2009This one comes to us from our good buddies at the Law Librarian Blog. Georgetown has compiled an excellent and seemingly comprehensive list of free (or low-cost) online legal research tools and databases. Given that the economy nowadays has every...
Scholarship alert: "Training Independent Learners: Student Self-Editing Checklist for Law School Papers, Notes and Comments"
Posted on March 27, 2009UMKC is on fire these days (see below). This article was authored by three of their faculty, Professors Wanda Temm, Allen Rostron and Nancy Levit. It is available from SSRN here. From the abstract: Too often, professors offer exemplar edits...
Scholarship alert: "Legal Storytelling: The Theory and the Practice - Reflective Writing Across the Curriculum"
Posted on March 27, 2009The above article is by Professor Nancy Levit of U. Missouri at Kansas City. It's available on SSRN here. From the abstract: This article concentrates on the theory of narrative or storytelling and addresses the reasons it is vital to...
Another blogger critical of Koppen's ranking of moot court programs.
Posted on March 26, 2009Professor Robert Sherwin, the Director of Advocacy at Texas Tech University School of Law, has a blog called The Bench Brief in which he offers some critical commentary about Brian Koppen's ranking of moot court programs found at lawschooladvocacy.com which...
The cost-benefit analysis of attending law school in the new legal marketplace
Posted on March 25, 2009Given housing prices these days, the cost of attending grad school may now be the single biggest expenditure people make. With private (and some public) law school degrees weighing in at $100k to $150k a pop, and a legal marketplace...
Breaking news - LSAC reports a last minute surge in law school apps
Posted on March 25, 2009We had previously reported here that as of late February, the Law School Admissions Council ("LSAC") released data showing that although the number of law school applications was up, the number of applicants remained flat. That meant that the same...
clearly, obviously
Posted on March 25, 2009I tell my students to remember the words of Jean Luc Picard on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Instead of saying "clearly, ..." or "obviously, ...," just "make it so." Now after years of steering my students away from...
reading and writing opinions -- a working paper
Posted on March 25, 2009Third Circuit Senior Judge Ruggero Aldisert and two of his clerks, Meehan Rasch and Matthew P. Bartlett, have posted their new working paper, Opinion Writing and Opinion Readers, on SSRN. From the abstract: The authors-a federal appellate judge and his...
Adjuncts fight back!
Posted on March 25, 2009Little 'ol Weber State University in Ogden, Utah didn't know who they were messin' with when, for budgetary reasons, they decided to cut adjunct pay by 7% while leaving full time faculty pay unscathed. Like Tony Montana said: "When you...
Law firm websites that work - it's all about effective communication
Posted on March 25, 2009There's an interesting article in the April issue of the ABA Journal called Law Firm Websites that Work that gathers opinions from several experts about what makes a law firm's website effective. The experts opine on the following categories: Law...
Strunk & White's Elements of Style celebrates 50th B-day
Posted on March 25, 2009It's considered a classic, perhaps the classic usage and grammar guide and next week it turns 50. Where have the years gone? To celebrate, the publisher has issued a special leather-bound, gold-embossed edition. Why has this little guide that came...
Trouble with the links - working on it
Posted on March 24, 2009Thanks to those who let me know some of the blog links are not working. They changed the platform on us last week and I have to work out some of the bugs. I'll get the links working ASAP. Thanks...
What makes a great lawyer?
Posted on March 24, 2009The answer, according to an informal survey of Philadelphia lawyers, includes being an excellent listener, relentless dedication to enhancing one's knowledge and skill-set, being extremely detail oriented, possessing a great intuition, and having a tremendous passion for the law...
The Mercer Law Review has again
Posted on March 24, 2009The Mercer Law Review has again reserved a spot in one of its upcoming issues for an article on a legal writing subject. The newly appointed law review editors are on a fairly tight schedule; they want to complete article...
Holidays We Really Like
Posted on March 23, 2009Another date to save! April 23 is the Giornata Mondiale del Libro e del Diritto d'Autore -- the International Day of Books and the Rights of Authors. Celebrate with a good book . . . or at least a good...
Global Legal Skills Conference IV - Georgetown University Law Center
Posted on March 23, 2009Save the date. The fourth Global Legal Skills Conference will be held at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C. for those who teach legal writing and skills to lawyers and law students in other countries or who speak English...
Scholarship alert: "Promoting In-Depth Analysis: A Three-Part Approach to Teaching Analogical Reasoning to Novice Legal Writers"
Posted on March 23, 2009Professors Stephanie Roberts Hartung and George of Suffolk University School of law have just published Promoting In-Depth Analysis: A Three-Part Approach to Teaching Analogical Reasoning to Novice Legal Writers From the abstract on SSRN: Analogical reasoning is ubiquitous in every...
To make the scene with the long green, U. Michigan Press bids adieu to print
Posted on March 23, 2009Although many university presses are currently experimenting with a digital format, Inside Higher Ed. reports today that the U. of Michigan Press may be going the farthest in terms of altogether phasing out the print format. As it reports: "Within...
40 years later - Dictionary of American Regional English nears completion
Posted on March 23, 2009e than 40 years in the making, the multi-volume dictionary project that seeks to catalog the breadth and depth of regional English in the U.S. is nearing completion according to the University of Wisconsin's News. Known as "DARE," the five...
U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea
Posted on March 22, 2009The Contracts Law Prof Blog has a new posting on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea, which will be open for signature on September 23, 2009. Click here to...
ALWD best papers award
Posted on March 22, 2009To showcase outstanding legal writing scholarship, the Association of Legal Writing Directors will sponsor its first ?Best Papers? panel at its national conference this July. As many as three papers will be selected by judges? blind review for presentation by...
learning from other outsiders
Posted on March 22, 2009As recently as fifteen years ago, there was little scholarship on the status issues plaguing legal writing professors in the United States . Scholarship by and about other ?outsider? groups in the legal academy has been -- and continues to...
Stetson University College of Law
Posted on March 20, 2009Stetson University College of Law will host the 2009 Southeast Regional Legal Writing Conference on September 11 and 12, 2009, along with an ALWD Scholars? Forum/Workshop on September 13, 2009. The Program Committee encourages proposals for 25 minute conference presentations...
Scholarship Alert: "Step Right Up: Using Consumer Decision Making Theory to Teach Research Process in the Electronic Age"
Posted on March 20, 2009Professor Amy Sloan of University of Baltimore School of Law has just published Step Right Up: Using Consumer Decision Making Theory to Teach Research Process in the Electronic Age in 60 S.C.L.Rev. 123 (2008). Sounds like a good 'un: The...
Here's another list for you - the top 50 moot court rankings
Posted on March 20, 2009These are the top 50 law school appellate advocacy rankings according to Brian Koppen's Law Advocacy website (with a big 'ol hat tip to the TaxProf Blog): 1. South Texas 2. UC-Hastings 3. Georgetown 4. Washington University 5. Mississippi College...
The Ten Commandments of good lecturing
Posted on March 20, 2009Advice on what to do and what not to do from Inside Higher Ed.: 1. Thou shalt connect new lectures to previous ones. 2. Thou shalt move beyond chalk and talk. 3. Thou Shalt Not Lecture Like a Caffeinated Hummingbird...
Law prof writing about his experience as juror results in new trial
Posted on March 20, 2009The ABA Journal is reporting today that a New Jersey appeals court overturned yesterday a jury verdict in a civil case because a Seton Hall law professor who was a member of that jury wrote an article about the experience...
Yet another article about Twitter
Posted on March 19, 2009What does the NBA and the judicial system have in common? Both are upset about the inappropriate use of Twitter in court and on the court according to this article on CNET. Hat tip to Above the Law. I am...
What are lawyers looking for in CLE courses?
Posted on March 19, 2009For those legal writing profs who presently teach a CLE class or are contemplating doing so in the near future, Above the Law ran an informal survey last month asking its readers to share their thoughts about what works and...
The Legal Writing Institute has
Posted on March 19, 2009The Legal Writing Institute has issued its Call for Proposals for the 2010 Biennial Conference. Read on! Dear Colleagues ? As many of you already know, the 2010 LWI Biennial Conference will be held in Marco Island, Florida, in June...
A few days ago, we brought you
Posted on March 18, 2009A few days ago, we brought you the story of the juror who used Twitter to comment about the trial in which he and his fellow jurors awarded a 12-million-plus judgment to the plaintiff. Defendants are asking the judge to...
A good overview of Twitter for lawyers
Posted on March 18, 2009Following up on Professor Barger's post from a few days ago, the National Law Journal has an article that provides an excellent overview for lawyers, specifically, on Twitter - what it is, how to use it, and the pitfalls lawyers...
The Three Best Books About Writing -- Are They On Your Shelf?
Posted on March 18, 2009We're happy to present a guest blog post from Joseph Bazan of the Minnesota School of Business. (mew) Recently, a colleague noticed that I am a member of the Leal Writing Institute (LWI). Like many members of LWI, I have...
New national organization for adjuncts looking for law professors to join
Posted on March 17, 2009We helped break the news back in February about a new, national organization called "The National Coalition of Adjunct Faculty" that seeks to support and advocate for adjunct faculty everywhere, including those who teach legal writing. As a result of...
Social networking sites account for 10% of total time spent online, more than email
Posted on March 17, 2009Here's a fascinating article from the Washington Post describing the pervasiveness of social networking sites in terms of the total time spent online noting, in particular, that the average person spends more time on these sites than email (ed. note....
Recent panel discussed how to remove the BS from academic writing
Posted on March 17, 2009At this past weekend's annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, a panel discussion entitled Empty Rhetoric and Academic Bullshit: Strategies for Composition?s Self-Representation in National Arenas was held to discuss, well, how to take the BS...
'Chart of doom" is one stop shopping for law students looking for job news
Posted on March 17, 2009A blog called The Shark ("don't stop swimming - it's law school.") has created a "chart of doom" to track all the news about law firm lay-offs, rescinded 2L and 3L offers, canceled summer programs, etc. so that "anxious" law...
Workload for writing teachers at community colleges is stretched to the limit
Posted on March 16, 2009According to preliminary data released Saturday at the annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication ("CCCC"). Inside Higher Ed is reporting today that: The [CCCC] has long had standards for writing courses, based on the idea that...
Some laid-off associates can't give their time away
Posted on March 16, 2009Now more than ever, it's critical that law professors and administrators understand the financial reality facing our debt-laden students when they graduate. Given the current surfeit of lawyers, the terrible job market at present and the possibility that things will...
one minute of writing
Posted on March 16, 2009As Sue notes, so many of our students have done little writing before coming to law school. And with such big stakes as the memos and briefs we assign them, no wonder they are often paralyzed with fear. That's where...
things you should have learned in school ...
Posted on March 16, 2009In conversation with a 1L today, I discovered that it is possible to graduate from a research level 1 university in the United States with an undergraduate degree in a science and never write a lab report. This student fulfilled...
reading admission files
Posted on March 15, 2009It's that time of the year, the final push in law school admissions offices across the United States to read through applications and decide who will be entering law school in the fall. At the small law school where I...
twittering lawyers
Posted on March 15, 2009The notion of brief writing takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to Twitter. Brief -- in the sense of short -- because with Twitter, you write no more than a couple of lines at a time. Think...
Disability Law Writing Competition
Posted on March 15, 2009Mercer and the ABA host an annual writing competition in honor of Mercer?s former legal writing professor, Adam Milani. It is one of the few competitions for student-written briefs rather than academic papers. Prizes can be as high as $1,000....
We interrupt this argument to bring you . . . another question
Posted on March 15, 2009Minnesota Poli Sci Prof Timothy Johnson has been researching how often United States Supreme Court justices interrupt the advocates arguing before them. The work of Johnson and his co-authors, Paul J. Wahlbeck and James F. Spriggs, "The Evaluation of Oral...
juror tweets inspire motion for new trial
Posted on March 14, 2009Defense lawyers in Arkansas have moved for a new trial after learning that one of the jurors in the case, Johnathan Powell, used Twitter to share his thoughts with followers. The jury hit defendants Russell Wright and Stoam Industries with...
quotable
Posted on March 13, 2009"Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders." - Walter Bagehot (spl)
Contract written in human blood held unenforceable by California appeals court
Posted on March 13, 2009Get this - the AP reports that two friends went to a combination karaoke bar/sushi restaurant when one of them decides he wants to write an agreement promising the other that he'll pay back the $170k he owes. No pen?...
A new video game for lawyers called "Objection!" - May count towards CLE credit.
Posted on March 13, 2009Depending on your age bracket, this is either coolest ever legal accoutrement or a sure sign that the profession is in steep decline. It's a new video game called "Objection!" that, according to this review in PC World, is a...
Another scholarship alert: The effect of Clinical Education on Law Student Reasoning: an Empirical Study
Posted on March 13, 2009Professor Stefan Krieger of Hofstra has just published The effect of clinical education on law student reasoning: an empirical study in 35 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 359 (2008). I am the scholarship dude. (jbl)
New scholarship alert: A Methodology for Mentoring Writing in Law Practice: Using Textual Clues to Provide Effective and Efficient Feedback
Posted on March 13, 2009The Boston College legal writing posse consisting of Professors Jane Kent Gionfriddo, Dan Barnett and Joan Blum have just published a new article entitled A methodology for mentoring writing in law practice: using textual clues to provide effective and efficient...
top ten in SSRN
Posted on March 12, 2009What articles on SSRN's Legal Writing eJournal are downloaded the most? Readers seem to be most interested in advice for getting published, better brief-writing, better analysis, and oral argument. Here are the top ten: Publishing Advice for Graduate Students Thom...
This is a great idea - helping student improve their writing skills through Wikipedia
Posted on March 12, 2009This article from today's Inside Higher Ed. suggests that teachers can make very effective use of Wikipedia to help improve their students' writing by encouraging them to create their own Wiki entries. It's an idea that seems to embrace many...
What's wrong with this picture? IQ's fall while grades rise.
Posted on March 12, 2009As we reported here on Tuesday, a U.K. study found that attorney IQs have fallen over the last twelve years. Today, Inside Higher Ed is reporting on a study by Stuart Rojstacze, a retired Duke professor, who says that grade...
Law school creates innovative "real world" practice experience for all 3L's
Posted on March 12, 2009Washington & Law Dean Rod Smolla knows what time it is - time for law schools to get serious about not just training students to think like lawyers, but to train them to actually practice law. That idea, along with...
Here's a twist on the debate over laptops in the classroom - how about laptops in the courtroom?
Posted on March 12, 2009While law profs have debated endlessly, or so it seems, whether laptops in the classroom are a good thing or not, today's National Law Journal reports on the nascent debate happening about the use of laptops, Blackberrys and other hand-held...
Jessup International Moot Court Competition Celebrates its 50th Anniversary on March 27th
Posted on March 11, 2009The 50th Anniversary of the Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court Competition is being celebrated on March 27, 2009 in Washington D.C. The featured speakers are two former presidents of the International Court of Justice: Dame Rosalyn Higgins of the...
Presidential Signing Statements
Posted on March 11, 2009President Obama has issued an important statement on Presidential signing statements. It may be a point you will want to include when teaching federal statutory research. Click here to read a post about it by Steve Schwinn of The John...
the "two piles" approach to research and writing
Posted on March 11, 2009Law students love to research. No, it's true! They love to research because it's fun to find authority that is relevant to the issues AND because as long as they're researching, they can postpone the more painful task of writing....
clearly, a good writing rule to follow . . .
Posted on March 11, 2009Yesterday we had a local appellate attorney talk to our students, and he offered a quotation from Chief Justice Roberts about how to argue effectively, including the implied writing rule that use of intensifiers is often not persuasive. "We get...
Scalia opines at Pepperdine
Posted on March 11, 2009Dean Kenneth Starr (formerly Solicitor General) was the host when Justice Antonin Scalia visited Pepperdine Law School earlier this week. This detailed report of their "conversation" comes from the Los Angeles County Bar Association Blog. We will share a few...
proposal deadline for Lone Star regional LRW conference
Posted on March 11, 2009The Lone Star Regional Legal Research and Writing Conference will be held at Texas Tech University School of Law on May 29-30, 2009. We invite proposals for presentations at this conference and welcome proposals from anyone involved in legal education,...
judges as authors, and vice versa
Posted on March 11, 2009A working paper by Ryan Benjamin Witte examines the extent to which some federal judges "summon their inner novelist or poet to add life to the pages of the Federal Register." The paper, titled The Judge as an Author/The Author...
your next LRW class: featuring a 500-1 ratio?
Posted on March 11, 2009No more worries about shrinking law-school enrollments, says the Onion. New federal legislation will mandate that every twenty-five-year-old in America spend one year in law school, "to simultaneously placate their parents, impress their friends with complex-sounding legal jargon, and effectively...
Nova legal writing professor Anthony Niedwiecki elected Commissioner-Mayor.
Posted on March 11, 2009I'm proud to report that Anthony Niedwiecki, a legal writing colleague of mine at Nova, was elected yesterday to a seat on the Oakland Park City Commission in Ft. Lauderdale. Based on the chain of command, he will become Vice...
Alternative to the LSAT measures students' ability to research, write and problem solve
Posted on March 11, 2009The New York Times is reporting today that two UC Berkeley Professors teamed up to design an alternative to the traditional LSAT entrance exam which they believe will better measure a student's likelihood of success in practice while avoiding the...
Judge Gertner to Professor Nesson: The Courtroom is not a classroom, bub!
Posted on March 11, 2009United States District Court Judge Nancy Gertner just schooled Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson in how to act in federal court telling him in a written decision that litigating in her courtroom is "no clinical exercise." The written decision, found...
Watch this - an amazing video about technology's impact on the world
Posted on March 11, 2009Maybe you've already seen this - but if you haven't, take a gander. It's a very effective video presentation about the way in which technology has affected our lives and will continue to do so at an exponential rate. The...
UK study shows average IQ of attorneys has declined
Posted on March 10, 2009So reports the UK website "The Lawyer.com" As they explain:The study, carried out by the Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO) at Bristol University, suggested that lawyers have moved closer to average intelligence over the past 12 years. The...
Should Thomas Jefferson Law School offer a course in dinosaur law?
Posted on March 10, 2009You may have read in early February that excavation for the new $68 million Thomas Jefferson School of Law building uncovered the 500,000 year old fossil of a Columbian mammoth. Then came the discovering 10 days ago of the 600,000...
Are big firms beginning to ratchet down starting salaries? They're nuts if they don't.
Posted on March 10, 2009It's not a surprise to anyone who's read the news in the past six months that given the present state of the legal marketplace, $160k starting salaries for BigLaw associates are not sustainable. Some would argue they were never rational...
2,500 lost legal jobs in the past 10 days
Posted on March 10, 2009Reported the ABA Journal yesterday. One law firm consultant says he expects to see law firm lay-offs continue at least through the fourth quarter of this year. While financial wiz-man Warren Buffett told CNBC yesterday that the "economy has fallen...
Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference this weekend
Posted on March 10, 2009Over 110 legal writing professors are getting ready to travel to Arizona State University for the 9th annual Rocky Mountain Legal Writing conference, taking place this coming Friday and Saturday, March 13th and 14th. The theme of the conference is...
Library Research Grants at Harvard - Schlessinger Library on the History of Women
Posted on March 10, 2009The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America invites scholars whose research requires use of the library's collections to apply for research support. Applications will be evaluated on the significance of the research and the...
Nebraska Joins 43 Other States in Requiring MCLE
Posted on March 10, 2009Nebraska ? the state that gave us the unicameral (the "one house" state legislature) ? will join 43 other states that have mandatory continuing legal education. Active members of the Nebraska bar will have to collect 10 credit hours annually...
"Please Repeat the Question" -- A Music Video from NYU Law Students on Web Surfing in Class
Posted on March 10, 2009The debate on laptops in the classroom has raised many thoughts, but none as WONDERFULLY expressed as in this music video made by students at New York University School of Law. (I went there for an LLM, but I don't...
Next
