
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense
Find a Local Lawyer
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402
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.
Grammar Girl begs the question
Posted on August 28, 2008A site I often visit for its entertaining podcasts on grammar (of all things!) is Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Grammar (Grammar Girl is the alter ego of Mignon Fogarty, and she also has a book). Recently,...
ILSA Writing Competition at Vermont Law School
Posted on August 27, 2008As part of the International Law Students' Association (ILSA) conference on genocide, Vermont Law School is sponsoring a law student writing competition. The topic is ?Redefining Genocide: How Can the Genocide Convention be Modernized to Comport with Emerging Norms?? Each...
Legal rhetoric shaping the law - 2008 conference scheduled
Posted on August 27, 2008American University?s Washington College of Law is again sponsoring a conference on the uses of legal rhetoric, focusing this year on the language of violence and torture. The conference is scheduled for Friday, November 7, 2008. Peter Brooks (Yale, Princeton)...
call for articles on teaching with technology
Posted on August 27, 2008The focus of the Spring 2009 issue of The Second Draft is "Teaching Through Technology," and the LWI newsletter has issued a call for articles. Click here to read the submission guidelines. Articles must not exceed 650 words. Send submissions...
Global Legal Skills Conference IV - Georgetown University Law Center
Posted on August 26, 2008As the guy who started the Global Legal Skills Conference, it is a special honor to pass along the call for papers for GLS-IV, to be held at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. It might not meet the...
When correcting typos is a felony
Posted on August 26, 2008According to this article in the New York Times, "two self-styled vigilantes against typos" have been touring the United States this past year correcting errors on government and private signs. (Read more about their exploits here). Their "crime spree" finally...
The secrets of a legendary writing professor - "Kerouac got an A."
Posted on August 25, 2008The scholarship dude is a bit behind in his reading so please excuse the delay in bringing you this column from the July 27 edition of the Education Life Supplement to the New York Times. It's the story of the...
Journal of the Legal Writing Institute - submission deadline Sept. 1
Posted on August 25, 2008The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute is accepting articles through September 1 based on presentations at this summer's LWI Conference at U. Indiana. Of course, others are invited to submit articles throughout the year but if you presented at...
Blogs We Like
Posted on August 25, 2008We posted here earlier on our favorite legal writing blogs, sharing with you a quick list drawn up by David Sorkin of The John Marshall Law School. Although the blog addresses we gave were all good, the website didn't allow...
a stifled dissent . . .
Posted on August 25, 2008State Supreme Court Bans Sitting Justice From Filing His Dissent The Mississippi Supreme Court ordered one of its sitting justices not to publish his dissent with the Court's majority decision. Apparently the Court stopped its court clerk from filing Justice...
on the importance of legal writing
Posted on August 25, 2008Over on the new legal writer blog, there's excellent advice for 1Ls on the importance of their legal writing work. hat tip: Professor Diane Murley (spl)
ethics in the legal writing course
Posted on August 25, 2008Scott Fruehwald (Hofstra) has posted a new paper on SSRN, Legal Writing, Professionalism, and Legal Ethics, that offers advice on ways to incorporate ethics into the writing curriculum. From the abstract: This article discusses how to teach professional ethics within...
LWI on Linked In
Posted on August 24, 2008LWI members on "Linked In" can now join the "Legal Writing Institute (LWI)" group. You will be able to show your professional contacts that you are a member of LWI. (If for some reason you're not a member of LWI,...
Twelve AALS Sections Are Seeking Poster Submissions
Posted on August 24, 2008Twelve AALS Sections are seeking proposals from individuals for poster presentations for the 2009 Annual Meeting in San Diego: . · Clinical Legal Education · Education Law · Evidence · Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research · Insurance Law · International...
Brief-Writing Tips for the Illinois Appellate Court
Posted on August 24, 2008The August 2008 issue of the Illinois Bar Journal contains a great article called "Brief-Writing Tips for the Illinois Appellate Court." It is by Maria Pellegrino, a law clerk to a justice on the Illinois Appellate Court, Second District. If...
Legal Writing Conference in South Africa
Posted on August 24, 2008Mimi Samuel, Co-President of APPEAL (Academics Promoting the Pedagogy of Effective Advocacy in Law), has just shared the news that APPEAL and the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law in South Africa will hold a Conference on Promoting the Teaching...
quotable
Posted on August 24, 2008I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper. ~Steve Martin (cmb)
an act of public editing . . .
Posted on August 23, 2008Ever been tempted to edit a public sign rife with grammatical and other error? Doing so could result in criminal charges and probation . . . but a resultant sense of self-righteous satisfaction, I'll bet. hat tip: Lee Tucker, Associate...
Poster Presentations at the AALS Meeting in San Diego
Posted on August 23, 2008AALS has sent out the invitation for proposals for poster presentations for the 2009 AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. One of the sections seeking posters is the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research. (Another is the...
job opening for director at North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Posted on August 23, 2008The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law invites applications for a newly developed full-time Clinical Faculty appointment for a Director of Research, Reasoning, Writing, and Advocacy, beginning in Fall 2009. The Director of Research, Reasoning, Writing,...
Conference on Persuasion in Legal Writing and Lawyering
Posted on August 23, 2008Rutgers-Camden and the University of Wyoming College of Law will hold a one-day conference on Friday, September 19, 2008, on ?Persuasion in Legal Writing and Lawyering.? . The conference is a series of interactive panels where the speakers and participants...
New Article
Posted on August 22, 2008Here's a useful article for law students. It's called "Legal Research, Legal Writing, and Legal Analysis: Putting Law School into Practice." It was just posted on SSRN by Suzanne Rowe. Click here to download a copy of it. (mew)
lawyers and creativity
Posted on August 22, 2008Professor Peter Friedman, a visiting professor this year at Detroit Mercy, has started yet another blog, on a very interesting angle of lawyering. It's called Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity, and "it is intended to explore both the ways law...
More blog links
Posted on August 22, 2008This blog recently listed links to a bunch of blogs we like, but it was not an exclusive list. Here are some of my current personal favorites: Mr. Rewrite: Spelling, Grammar, and Usage Tips Served with a Dash of Humor...
The forsaken pen gets a high-tech makeover - "Smartpen" debuts
Posted on August 21, 2008I ran across this at the local Target yesterday - a new high-tech pen being marketed specifically to students called the "Smartpen." The package includes the pen and some special note-taking paper students use to handwrite their class notes. The...
New study shows legal writing grade is best predictor of academic success.
Posted on August 21, 2008Professor Leah Christensen, Associate Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson Law School, has just authored a new article describing a study she conducted demonstrating the critical importance of legal writing in the law school curriculum to students' success...
the effect of self-handicapping on GPA
Posted on August 21, 2008Our scholarship dude has just reported on Leah Christensen's study finding student performance in legal writing courses to be a strong predictor of success in law school. Can we add another factor into the mix? Catherine Ross Dunham (Elon) has...
" and ' straight or curly?
Posted on August 20, 2008"Does the legal writing community have a preference for straight or curly quotation marks? Is there a rule about it?" one of our readers asks. He wants to use one format; his firm prefers the other. Of course, how quotation...
to illustrate a lesson . . .
Posted on August 20, 2008Want to introduce a discussion of annoying phrases that your students should edit from their writing? This cartoon may help . . . it shows two squirrels, with one saying to the other, "Must you always begin every sentence with...
A Few of Our Favorite Blogs
Posted on August 20, 2008The subject of legal writing blogs came up at a meeting yesterday of the legal writing faculty at The John Marshall Law School. My colleague, David Sorkin, compiled a quick list of favorite blogs for legal writing professors. There are...
Previous | Next
Update on AILF's Legal Action Center Visa Bulletin Litigation (Updated 7/10/07)
The following is the latest update from AILF regarding its pening ...
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center Legislative Forecast
The ILRC Forecast on Immigration ReformJudith Golub, Executive Dir...
The Christian Legal Society and "discrimation": Response to Susan
In response to Susan's post, I'm inclined to think that, yes, the ...
Stacy Scnheider Legal Commentator Apprentice
Catholic Legal Theory and life and death
Tom Berg’s question regarding the propriety or not of capital pu...
Pre-paid Leagal Services
What are Prepaid Legal Benefit Plans
Legal Forms
Business and Commercial Legal Forms
Best Law Movies
Greatest Legal Movies selected by ABA Journal
Law & Order Depicts Police Procedures and Criminal Justice
Accuracy of Criminal Justice Depiction on Television
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...








