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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.
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...
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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...








