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Legal Writing

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

Long Words Make You Look Stupid

Posted on May 17, 2008
Sue Liemer posted on this last year, but it's worth another visit. If you have doubts on how to convince law students, other lawyers, and faculty colleagues (including, perhaps, members of a tenure committee), you can send them here to...

Eight Law Professors from Africa will attend the LWI Conference

Posted on May 17, 2008
Among the wonderful things to expect at this summer's Legal Writing Institute Conference is the chance to meet eight law professors from Africa. Their participation was made possible through the generosity of several law schools (including my own), and the...

Letters of the Law

Posted on May 17, 2008
Drafting legal correspondence requires attention to the purpose of the communication, its audience, the message, and the medium. Depending upon the circumstances, a letter or memorandum style may be appropriate, but sometimes oral communication may be preferable...

Journal of the Legal Writing Institute

Posted on May 17, 2008
Have you visited the website for the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute? Click here for a quick look. You can read articles from the current issue, browse articles from past issues, and have a look at what will be...

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Pink Ink Celebration

Posted on May 16, 2008
The Pink Ink Caucus of the Legal Writing Institute will be celebrating today's California Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage at the LWI Conference in Indianapolis. If you are interested in joining the Pink Ink Caucus Mailing List, contact Steven...

"backdating" your SSRN account

Posted on May 16, 2008
As legal writing professors across the United States finish up the school year, some are cleaning up offices in celebration, others are cleaning offices in procrastination -- before grading that last stack of papers. If you're a legal writing professor...

Good Fact Pattern for a Legal Memo Problem?

Posted on May 16, 2008
The ABA Journal Weekly E-Newsletter has a story about a man who tried to hide from his wife that he (and 16 of his co-workers) won the lottery. His share of the winnings was $600,000. She wants half of that,...

Newsletter for the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility

Posted on May 16, 2008
Our friends at the Legal Profession Blog posted a link to the newsletter for the Association of American Law Schools Section on Professional Responsibility. It's a newsletter with some news -- it contains summaries of cases and scholarship, ethics rule...

Welcome Back Sue Liemer!

Posted on May 16, 2008
If you've been watching closely, Sue Liemer (spl) has started posting to the Legal Writing Prof Blog again after her sabbatical this semester from the Southern Illinois University. I had two chances to visit her down in Carbondale this year,...

Legal Research in Canada

Posted on May 15, 2008
Among the many wonderful research resources for researching the law of other nations is a free online guide called Doing Legal Research in Canada. It is offered to us by Ted Tjaden, Director of Knowledge Management at McMillan Binch Mendelsohn...

co-opting the laptop

Posted on May 14, 2008
Over the summer, I plan to pull together a series of short lessons that will make active use of the ubiquitous laptops in my classroom. I don't want to ban them (although my school's policy would let me make that...

Editorial Board of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute

Posted on May 13, 2008
The Editorial Board for the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute is seeking applications for membership on the Editorial Board and applications for those interested in serving as Assistant Editors. A complete description of the Journal, its mission, editorial policy...

No CLE? No License to Practice!

Posted on May 13, 2008
The Legal Profession Blog is reporting that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court accepted a proposed consent disposition and suspended an attorney for 18 months because he had not satisfied his CLE and CLE reporting requirements. He then engaged in the unauthorized...

not much of a case

Posted on May 13, 2008
Justice Scalia's photo is on the front cover of the ABA Journal, and he's busy being interviewed on NPR. Why? Because he co-wrote a book, along with Bryan Garner, called Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. The ABA...

LWI Conference Preview - Wednesday Session 3

Posted on May 13, 2008
This post continues the previews of sessions at this summer's Legal Writing Institute conference. Here are the third round of sessions on Wednesday, July 16, 2008, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. W3A Richard K. Neumann (Professor of Law at...

Thank You (Again) to Our Readers

Posted on May 13, 2008
The Legal Writing Prof Blog continues to have a great increase in visits to the website. Our page visits have gone up by more than 1,000 each month. In January we had 6,067 page visits. In February we had 7,243...

another perspective on LRW status issues

Posted on May 12, 2008
To look at LRW status issues from a different angle, see Mitch Nathanson's article on Dismantling the "Other": Understanding the Nature and Malleability of Groups in the Legal Writing Professorate's Quest for Equality, 13 Legal Writing: The Journal of the...

listing the worst errors

Posted on May 12, 2008
What are the worst kinds of writing mistakes to make? Which affect the reader's assessment of the writer's intelligence? See whether you agree that the errors listed in these sites are among the worst: Copyblogger: Five Grammatical Errors That Make...

LWI Conference Preview - Wednesday Session 2

Posted on May 11, 2008
This post continues the preview of sessions that will be held at the Legal Writing Institute summer conference in Indianapolis. The sessions here will be held on Wednesday, July 16, 2008, from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. W2A -- Kathryn M....

Legal Writing Walkers

Posted on May 11, 2008
Tracy McGaugh is looking for legal writing professors to walk in the 3-Day/60-mile Komen walk in Philadelphia, October 17-19, 2008. Click here to send her an email if you're interested. It's not too late to start training, and there will...

locating the elusive "trail court"

Posted on May 11, 2008
I have been much too hard on my students, marking instances in their appellate briefs in which they have referred to the "trail court." Trail courts do indeed exist! In looking for this entity on the Internet, I found the...

Happy Mother's Day

Posted on May 11, 2008
Since a disproportionate number of legal writing professors are female, it's likely a disproportionate number of legal writing professors are mothers. And every legal writing professor started out with a mother. Hence, there is some connection to the focus of...

what oughta be added to the curriculum

Posted on May 10, 2008
Over at the Faculty Lounge, Laura Appleman has posted a list of "truly useful" courses that law schools really need to add to bring today's curriculum up to date. Some of her suggested courses that seem particularly relevant to the...

bad writing made worse by "electronic gizmo" distractions

Posted on May 10, 2008
An upcoming issue of the National Law Journal (May 12, 2008) reports the unsurprising news that lawyers still do not write well. Jennifer Murphy Romig (Emory), Bryan Garner, Craig Jeffrey, and Douglas Winter were interviewed for the article, and all....

self-edit certification

Posted on May 09, 2008
~~~from Wanda Temm, UMKC School of Law =========== Colleagues, Like many of us, I have just emerged from another round of critiquing briefs. I find one of the most frustrating things in critquing papers is finding basic mistakes or just...

the sporting way to pick a law school

Posted on May 09, 2008
Take me out to the law library? (Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjack.) The popular blawg "tabloid," Above the Law, notes that CBS Sports (yes, you read that correctly) is giving advice on how to choose a law school. (cmb)...

grading without distractions

Posted on May 09, 2008
If you are falling behind due to too many grading distractions, you might benefit from checking out this advice for grading papers "fast and fairly." (And if it's our fault, sorry!) Most of us have developed techniques for systematically attacking...

Scalia, Garner don't / do not always agree

Posted on May 08, 2008
In a recent post to the LRWProf listserv concerning the new book on persuasion by co-authors Bryan Garner and Justice Antonin Scalia, Appalachian Law School Prof. Michael Loudenslager notes their different points of view about Garner's recommended practice of putting...

secret lives of storm troopers: grading distraction #8

Posted on May 08, 2008
Some of you are fans of Star Wars; some of you are fans of Star Trek. (Some of you don't know the difference, but Ken Chestek, John Mollenkamp, and Jan Levine will help you make up for it at the...

DC Judge Who Sued Dry Cleaner Now Suing to Get His Job Back

Posted on May 08, 2008
The Legal Profession Blog (among others) has an update on the D.C. judge who sued the dry cleaner for $67.3 million for a pair of lost pants. He's now suing to get his job back, claiming a million in damages....

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