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Legal Writing Prof Blog 

By law professors Coleen M. Barger, Sue Liemer and Nancy Soonpaa
Post Frequency: 31.6/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 15:42:31 Recent Entries: 2529
Go to Legal Writing Prof Blog, find other Legal Writing blogs, or browse all law blogs.
in memoriam, David Foster Wallace
Posted on September 15, 2008Benjamin Opipari of Washington, D.C., graciously agreed to write this post: For the past few days, superlatives have been heaped, rightly, on David Foster Wallace. Jaw dropping. Talent that left every other writer in awe. An American original. A singular...
job opening(s) at Michigan
Posted on September 14, 2008The University of Michigan Law School seeks applicants for one or more openings for the position of Clinical Assistant Professor of Law beginning in the 2009-2010 academic year. The Law School will be hiring at least one professor, and maybe...
legal memos in this century
Posted on September 13, 2008The March 2008 issue of the Journal of Legal Education just landed in my mail box this week. It includes a thought-provoking article by Professor Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione of Georgetown, entitled From Snail Mail to E-Mail: The Traditional Legal Memorandum...
Top Ten Law Songs
Posted on September 13, 2008Think of a song about the law. Click here to see if your choice is on the Top Ten List of Law Songs. Hat tip to our friends at the Law Librarian Blog. (mew)
Scribes - The American Society of Legal Writers
Posted on September 12, 2008Scribes was founded in 1953 to promote an interest in writing about the law, a feeling of fraternity among those who do, and above all, "a clear, succinct, and forceful style in legal writing." You can join Scribes as an...
Excuse me, may I borrow that?
Posted on September 12, 2008Appellate lawyers have been known to hope out loud that the courts they seek to persuade will like their arguments so much that they'll lift their words and use them in the courts' opinions. Now comes evidence that in fact,...
job openings at Cornell
Posted on September 12, 2008Cornell Law School seeks candidates for full-time, permanent contract faculty positions (currently held by visitors) in its Lawyering Program, commencing in the 2009-10 academic year. The Lawyering course is a year-long, four-credit course that introduces first-year students to lawyering skills,...
blogs, legal research, and the Court
Posted on September 12, 2008The Wall Street Journal blog reports that the United States Supreme Court may revisit its June 2008 decision overturning Louisiana's death penalty for convicted child rapists. One of the arguments relied upon by the five-vote majority in Kennedy v. Louisiana...
supplements for legal research courses
Posted on September 12, 2008An article recently posted on SSRN by Shawn G. Nevers (Brigham Young) provides a wealth of information--and potential teaching materials--for those who count legal research among their teaching responsibilities. Click here to access SSRN and download Legal Research Readings for...
job opening at Vermont
Posted on September 12, 2008Vermont Law School has announced an opening in its Legal Writing Department for a contract position. The initial appointment will be for two years, followed by a second two-year contract and then renewable five-year contracts. Professors in the Legal Writing...
kudos to Kristin Gerdy
Posted on September 12, 2008Congratulations to Kristin Gerdy, director of the legal writing program at Brigham Young University Law School, who has received the R. Wayne Hansen Teaching and Learning Fellowship. hat tip: Jane Wise (cmb)
Practice Meets Pedagogy conference scheduled for December
Posted on September 11, 2008Registration is now open for the "Practice Meets Pedagogy" conference hosted by St. John's University School of Law on Friday, December 5, 2008. Conference topics address the changing world of law practice: What do legal employers expect of today's law...
kudos to Steve Homer
Posted on September 11, 2008Legal writing professor Steve Homer has received the Friedman Faculty Award from the University of New Mexico School of Law. This award recognizes excellence in teaching and is a school-wide award. Well done, Steve! hat tip: Professor Barbara Blumenfeld (spl)
Volumes 4 & 5 of J. ALWD out now.
Posted on September 10, 2008The Fall 2008 issue of J. ALWD is now available on the Journal's website and the print issue should arrive in mailboxes this week. At present, the Journal reaches over 3,500 subscribers including law professors, deans, libraries, lawyers, and judges....
Use of free online research tools outpaces fee services for first time.
Posted on September 10, 2008According to the September 2008 issue of the ABA Journal Magazine, for the first time more lawyers are using free online research tools than commercial services. Other than that, the article, entitled "Web 2.0 Still a No-Go: Lawyers slow to...
Milani Award Judges
Posted on September 10, 2008Writing competitions could not take place without the help of judges. These usually don't get paid much (hah!) to do this -- they step in out of sense of contribution, support, and respect for the competition. The judges of the...
job opening at Pacific McGeorge
Posted on September 10, 2008Pacific McGeorge School of Law anticipates an opening for a full-time Legal Process Instructor under a 10-month contract from August 1, 2009, to May 31, 2010. The person filling this position may teach two day-division sections or one section in...
new LWI Moot Court Committee creates listserv
Posted on September 10, 2008Do you coach moot court teams? Advise moot court boards or societies? Enjoy the thrill of appellate advocacy? Fret over the administrative aspects of running a competition? The Legal Writing Institute has created a new committee for you, the Committee...
Milani Award winners
Posted on September 10, 2008Professor Suzianne Painter-Thorne of Mercer University School of Law has announced the winners of the Milani Award: "The Adam A. Milani Disability Law Writing Competition is a national disability law writing competition sponsored by the Mercer University School of Law...
"Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."
Posted on September 10, 2008While you may be familiar with the Bulwer-Lytton contest for perfectly awful writing, you may not know (I didn't) about the Washington Post's invitations for reader submissions of awful analogies in 1995 and 1999. According to this post at The...
More Great Quotes About Legal Writing
Posted on September 10, 2008"[I]t is not unconstitutional to be interesting." Ruggero J. Aldisert, Winning on Appeal Better Briefs and Oral Argument 163 (2d ed. 2003) Hat tip to Evelyn C. Tombers (mew)
Linda Edwards in my Mailbox
Posted on September 09, 2008I've seen many promotional pieces of literature over the years, but one of the nicest ones I can remember just arrived today. It is a postcard announcing that Linda Edwards of Mercer will be visiting at UNLV. You'll all likely...
job openings at Tennessee
Posted on September 09, 2008The University of Tennessee College of Law has openings for two or three full-time, tenure-track faculty positions to commence in the Fall Semester 2009. The College?s primary curricular needs are in the areas of Family Law, Legal Writing and Analysis,...
job openings at Northern Kentucky
Posted on September 09, 2008Northern Kentucky University, Salmon P. Chase College of Law has announced openings for one or more tenured or tenure-track legal writing positions to begin in the 2009-10 academic year. Legal writing faculty teach two sections of legal writing each semester...
AALS section seeks nominations
Posted on September 08, 2008This announcement arrived from Professor Susan Thrower, of DePaul University: " On behalf of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research, I am pleased to announce a call for nominations for the offices of Secretary and Chair-Elect for....
more new scholarship
Posted on September 08, 2008This week's scholarship abstracts, courtesy of SSRN & LWI: "Following the Kentucky General Assembly: With Apologies to Niccolo Machiavelli and the ABC Children's Programming Division" KURT X. METZMEIER, University of Louisville - Louis D. Brandeis School of Law No lawyer's...
divine punctuation
Posted on September 08, 2008Here in small town America, it's common for churches to post more than the time of the next service on a message board large enough to see as you drive by. Motorists can see a changeable feast of proverbs, warnings,...
Don't forget to join LWI's Facebook group.
Posted on September 07, 2008This summer, the Legal Writing Institute established a formal presence on Facebook. It's a great way to network with fellow legal writing professors as well as others interested in good legal writing. You don't have to be a member of...
Do you wear heels?
Posted on September 07, 2008Some readers of this blog may find familiar territory in a book edited by Jackie Slotkin and Samantha Slotkin Goodman: It's Harder in Heels: Essays by Women Lawyers Achieving Work-Life Balance (2007). Here's what reviewer Arthur Campbell said about it:...
The drafting of business contracts is dysfunctional according to a recent story in the NLJ
Posted on September 07, 2008The current issue of the National Law Journal contains an opinion piece by Kenneth Adams, a lecturer at U. of Pennsylvania School of Law, that labels the present state of business contract drafting "dysfunctional." You can read the full essay...
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Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
Can a probation officer make a decision that involves a medical decision and prohibit a person from leaving a state to get medical help?
well if you could get him to a mental health facility they could screen him for ...
This has happened 3 or 4 times a month now- they have turned the electric off 2 days consecutively, the water off about 9 or 10 times now, and our heat has broken 5 times (once it would not shut off, and we were forced t
i say stick with the apartment. eventually, everything possible will be replaced...

Did I harass someone?
Oh, yes. This can be taken in as so many things, especially since you had testif...
How to evict a roommate?
First, in most jurisdictions "self-help" is not a remedy available to any party ...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
Can a probation officer make a decision that involves a medical decision and prohibit a person from leaving a state to get medical help?
well if you could get him to a mental health facility they could screen him for ...
This has happened 3 or 4 times a month now- they have turned the electric off 2 days consecutively, the water off about 9 or 10 times now, and our heat has broken 5 times (once it would not shut off, and we were forced t
i say stick with the apartment. eventually, everything possible will be replaced...








