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Legal Writing

Legal Writing Prof Blog

By law professors Coleen M. Barger, Sue Liemer and Nancy Soonpaa

Post Frequency: 25.4/day

Last Entry: May 23, 2013 at 13:23:31

A New Take on the Skills v. Doctrine Debate

Posted on May 23, 2013
The WSJ Law Blog recently featured an article by Professor Paula Franzese, Seton Hall, contending that framing curricular issues as skills v. doctrinal misses the mark. Instead, Franzese contends that we should focus on right v. left brain. From the....

Attention, word lovers

Posted on May 22, 2013
The numerous names for linguistic phenomena may interest only word lovers?but there are many of those among this blog?s followers. Legal writing expert Bryan Garner, who counts himself among the word lovers, presents a passel of arcane but interesting tags...

Notification of Conference and Call for Proposals - Psychology & Lawyering: Coalescing the Field

Posted on May 21, 2013
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas - William S. Boyd School of Law will be hosting an upcoming conference which may be of interest to legal writing professors, as it deals with the intersection of psychology and lawyering skills. More...

brief right

Posted on May 20, 2013
If you're looking for some inspiration for staying the course as you grade a stack of 1L papers, you may appreciate brief right, a blog written by Kirby Griffis, a Washington, D.C., litigator. After marking the umpteenth misplaced apostrophe, it...

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our texting students

Posted on May 17, 2013
We're now teaching students who enter law school used to texting all day long. In an interesting article on "Texting and the Friction of Writing", Lindsey Gustafson looks at the implications. Here's her abstract: "This article begins with a picture...

registered for the ALWD conference yet?

Posted on May 15, 2013
It's already the middle of May, and then June will follow, and then it will be time for the ALWD conference. If you plan to attend and haven?t yet registered, note that the conference fee is $400 if paid by...

Shhhh! Don't Tell Anybody! Here's a Secret Link . . . .

Posted on May 14, 2013
. . . to the 4th edition (2012) of the Style Manual for the Supreme and Appellate Courts of Illinois. Go ahead, have a look by clicking here. (mew)

Do law students become worse writers?

Posted on May 13, 2013
Fifty percent of Bryan Garner?s students believe their writing has gotten worse since they started law school. To explore that belief further, Garner asked to see the previous writing of one honors English major who thought his writing had declined.....

an opinion that covers the gamut . . .

Posted on May 10, 2013
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, in a somewhat curious use of Star Trek references, offered an opinion that addressed a pornography downloading issue and included a Google maps screenshot and an elaborate chart (see pages...

Lisa McElroy is awarded tenure

Posted on May 09, 2013
Lisa McElroy of Drexel University has been awarded tenure. An active member of the legal writing community, Lisa has been on the boards of directors of both LWI and ALWD. She has also written about Supreme Court practice, contributed op-ed...

Amy Sloan is appointed associate dean

Posted on May 07, 2013
Amy Sloan of has been appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Amy's dedicated involvement in the legal writing community is legendary--she is a past president of the Association of Legal Writing Directors,...

The pitfalls of digitization of legal materials

Posted on May 07, 2013
Digitization of legal materials has its pitfalls, as West Virginia?s legal writing director Hollee Schwartz Temple explains in the May ABA Journal. Contrary to popular belief, not everything is available in digital form?and budget cuts are exacerbating that situation...

Comments Sought on Federal Student Aid Application

Posted on May 07, 2013
The U.S. Department of Education seeks comments on the Federal Student Aid application. Comments are due by July 5, 2013. Click here for more information. (mew)

Rules to Forget

Posted on May 06, 2013
The Lawyerist has a nice post on three grammar rules that you ought to forget. It turns out that your grade school grammar teacher may have perpetuated some bad, or at least unnecessary, habits. First, you should use ?and? and...

The scoop on federal court opinions and advocacy from Judge Posner

Posted on May 06, 2013
Judge Richard A. Posner offers insights on federal court opinions and advocacy in his recent article Judicial Opinions and Appellate Advocacy in Federal Courts?One Judge?s Views. His observations about how judges decide cases and write opinions will be of particular...

funny or not?

Posted on May 03, 2013
A federal judge in San Antonio, Texas, wrote an opinion in a strip-club case that, ah, got into the spirit of the situation: he chose words such as naked, clothe, erection, impacting, bottom, and girdled--and that's in the first four...

Zinsser still going strong at 90

Posted on April 30, 2013
William Zinsser, author of the respected On Writing Well, is still going strong at 90. A recent New York Times article reports that he holds one-on-one counseling sessions for writers. The article reiterates two well known pieces of Zinsser's advice:...

insightful post from The Faculty Lounge

Posted on April 29, 2013
I think this post speaks for itself: We Were Not Equals You can prep a dean all you want for his deposition in a lawsuit regarding a faculty firing, but sometimes he'll still answer entirely candidly. Background on the case...

Do judges expect lawyers to say ?May it please the Court??

Posted on April 26, 2013
Beginning an oral argument with the phrase ?May it please the Court? is a well-entrenched tradition: Bryan Garner reported in the April ABA Journal that he found uses of it going back to Shakespeare?s time. When Garner asked several judges...

positions at University of Idaho

Posted on April 25, 2013
The University of Idaho College of Law invites applications for two faculty positions: a Legal Research and Writing Assistant Clinical Professor and a Director of Externship and Pro Bono Programs. More information on both positions and the application process is...

List of lawyers? attributes includes the ability to communicate

Posted on April 24, 2013
The National Jurist recently published ?The Fromm Six,? a list of attributes a lawyer needs to excel. Drafted by Leonard Fromm, the late dean of students at Indiana University?s law school, the list was meant to advise aspiring lawyers about...

on the move ...

Posted on April 23, 2013
Lucy Jewel, currently an Associate Professor at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, will be joining the faculty at the University of Tennessee School of Law this coming fall semester. In addition to teaching legal writing and other lawyering skills,...

time to register for the ALWD conference

Posted on April 22, 2013
It's time to make your travel reservations and register for ALWD's 2013 biennial conference. This year the conference takes place at Marquette's beautiful new law school, from June 26 - 28. In addition to the hotel option, you have the...

Scribes Book Award Deadline is May 1

Posted on April 17, 2013
Scribes -- The American Society of Legal Writers -- holds an annual book award competition. The award will be presented at the Scribes Annual Meeting, held during the American Bar Association Meeting in San Francisco, on Friday, August 9, 2013....

Plain Language for Lawyers

Posted on April 17, 2013
Tomorrow I'm doing a CLE program on "Plain Language for Lawyers" at the Chicago Bar Association. I'm told that 230 people have signed up for the program (and the seminar room holds only 100 people). There will be video overflow...

NYT on Nominalizations

Posted on April 16, 2013
The Draft blog at NYT explores some writers' tendency to convert verbs to nouns and concludes that, perhaps, the practice has been unduly villified. While I disagree in part, the piece explains a concept that invariably confounds some 1Ls: ?Do...

Scribes Brief-Writing Competition Deadline is April 19

Posted on April 14, 2013
Scribes -- The American Society of Legal Writers -- holds an annual Brief-Writing-Award competition. The competition began in 1996 to help identify and celebrate excellent student-written briefs. The competition covers the current school year -- September 2012 to May 2013...

Save the Date: Scribes Annual Meeting Luncheon will be Friday, August 9, 2013 in San Francisco

Posted on April 13, 2013
Scribes -- The American Society of Legal Writers -- will have its annual luncheon on Friday, August 9, 2013 in San Fransisco during the annual meeting of the American Bar Association. The Scribes annual luncheon traditionally includes award presentations for...

co-editor Fischer promoted!

Posted on April 12, 2013
Congratulations are in order for our blog co-editor, Judy Fischer, who was granted tenure last year and now has been promoted to the rank of full Professor at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. In addition...

Student Lawyer publishes law reviews' errors

Posted on April 11, 2013
The Student Lawyer?s April issue has published Garner's Annual Parade of Law-Review Horribles, in which legal-writing legal expert Bryan Garner highlights law reviews? blunders from the past year. His list consists of usage errors like ?communication between he and his...

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