Legal Writing Prof Blog: Legal Writing

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Writing Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

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

ABA lists "Top 100" best legal blogs

Posted on December 03, 2009
It's nice (though not at all surprising) to see our good buddies at Above the Law make the list in the "News" category. And it's especially nice to see Elie Mystal singled out by the ABA Journal editors for his...

Using ALL CAPS in New Zealand can get you fired, mate!

Posted on December 03, 2009
This story reminds us that in writing, tone matters. According to the blog "Social Networking and the Law" a female employee at a New Zealand health care company called ProCare was fired after she sent instructions to fellow employees using...

how visual media are changing the law

Posted on December 02, 2009
Neal Feigenson, at Quinnipiac, and Christina Spiesel, at Yale, have written a new book on Law on Display, The Digital Transformation of Legal Persuasion and Judgement. At LawOnDisplay.com you can take a virtual tour through the various media they discuss...

5 million words typed in 50 years - Cormac McCarthy's Olivetti goes on the auction block

Posted on December 01, 2009
OK, so this is not about legal writing but it's close enough to merit a mention. And, it's pretty doggone interesting to boot. The New York Times is running a story today called "No Country for Old Typewriters" describing how...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

a lawyer's "secrets" of persuasion

Posted on December 01, 2009
If you went to law school and had a decent course in advocacy along the way, you likely know the "secrets" in a recent article posted on the ABA's website. But it never hurts to jog the memory cells and...

Call for Papers - Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT)

Posted on December 01, 2009
Here's the official call for papers for Transformation: Law of (Re)Discovery, the CALT conference to be held in Victoria, British Columbia, from June 21 to 22, 2010: As a system in a continual process of transformation, law presents, opportunities for...

more scholarship of interest

Posted on November 30, 2009
Thanks again to LWI and LSN, here are more new articles, abstracts written by the authors, and links to the full articles: "'Sending Down' Sabbatical: Lawyering in the Legal Services Trenches Has Benefits for Professor and Practitioner Alike" Journal of...

Terri LeClercq Named as First Ralph L. Brill Distinguished Visitor at Chicago-Kent College of Law

Posted on November 27, 2009
. The Chicago-Kent College of Law announced this year that is establihsing a Ralph L. Brill Professor of Law Chair. This recognizes the contributions of one of legal writing?s most well-known and best-loved heros. The law school plans for this...

Scholarship alert: A noteworthy article called "The Clinic Effect"

Posted on November 26, 2009
Here's one of the more interesting practice-oriented articles I've had come across my computer screen in a while. Authored by Professor Rebecca L. Sandefu of Stanford's sociology department and Professor Jeffrey Selbin of Berkeley School of Law, it's available at...

more scholarship updates

Posted on November 25, 2009
Here are some more intriguing abstracts from LSN. To access on of these articles free, just click on the title, then click on the download sign you'll see. "Ambiguity About Ambiguity: An Empirical Inquiry into Legal Interpretation" The Journal of...

Newsletter for the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research

Posted on November 25, 2009
Here's a reminder that the Fall 2009 newsletter of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research is now available. Hard copies are not being mailed, so please download a copy. Download AALS Legal Writing...

The Bluebook publishes online "cheat-sheet"

Posted on November 24, 2009
The consortium of law reviews that publish the Bluebook has just launched a website called "Blue Tips" that serves as a "cheat-sheet," or FAQ if you prefer, for many commonly asked Bluebook questions. The following topics are covered: Cases Citation....

Judge to Blackwater attorneys: "Don't single-space!"

Posted on November 24, 2009
According to the Crime Scene Blog on the Washington Post, a D.C. federal district judge warned the attorneys representing criminal defendants in the Blackwater case that they need to comply with the court's standing order requiring that submissions be double-spaced...

Workshops for Adjuncts and New Writing Faculty

Posted on November 23, 2009
The Legal Writing Institute is holding One-Day Workshops for Adjunct Professors and New Legal Writing Professors. The workshops will take place on Friday, December 4, 2009, in two locations: Chicago and New York City. The program will be held live...

Legal Writing Articles on SSRN

Posted on November 23, 2009
The Legal Writing Institute sponsors a page on the Social Science Research Network (www.ssrn.com) for articles relating to legal writing and its teaching. You can access the legal writing page by clicking here. If you register for SSRN (which is...

The Law Teacher newsletter

Posted on November 22, 2009
The fall 2009 edition of The Law Teacher is now available on-line. This newsletter is a publication of the Institute for Law Teaching and features short articles on law school teaching, learning, and curriculum. Here's how this edition of the...

Joe Kimble Wins AALS Legal Writing Section Award

Posted on September 30, 2009
The Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research has just announced the winner of its annual award. Section Chair Rachel Croskery-Roberts announced today that the recipient of the 2010 AALS Section Award will be Professor...

binding briefs

Posted on September 30, 2009
There are many methods of binding a brief, but not all meet with the approval of the court. Some courts allow stapling, but others do not, worrying about judges' and clerks' pricked fingertips, the result of handling briefs that are...

job opening at North Carolina

Posted on September 30, 2009
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Law invites applications for a full-time faculty position beginning Fall 2010 in the area of Academic Support/Legal Writing. Beginning and experienced teachers will be considered. Scholarship in areas related to...

California Judge Laments That There Is No Rehab Clinic for Acronym Addicts

Posted on September 30, 2009
It seems that judges have had enough of bad writing, improper punctuation, dangerous staples, and now overuse of acronyms. An appellate court justice in California wrote a 27-page opinion that criticized lawyers for "descending into an alphabet soup of jargon-based...

So simple a caveman could do it - but will you?

Posted on September 30, 2009
Professor Mitch Rubinstein at the Adjunct Law Prof Blog has posted this impotant piece of advice about the desireability of professor's insurance. As he points out, profs are probably already covered by their employers for most claims - like defamation...

Scholarship alert: "The Cartography of Legal Inquiry"

Posted on September 30, 2009
Washburn Professor Tonya Kowalski is on fire lately. As we reported a few days ago, she recently published this article. Now she's got a second article in the chute and ready to go. This was, called "The Cartography of Legal...

job opening at Marquette Law School

Posted on September 29, 2009
Marquette University Law School (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) invites applications for a position as a full-time, non-tenure track legal writing and research faculty member beginning in either the 2010 Spring semester or in the Fall 2010 semester. Candidates should have distinguished records...

job openings at New York Law School

Posted on September 28, 2009
New York Law School is beginning a new first-year Legal Writing/Skills Program to be taught by full-time faculty. The Law School plans to hire three full-time professors for the 2010-2011 school year to collaborate on the phase-in of a first-year,...

history of The Bluebook

Posted on September 28, 2009
Some legal writing profs have been reminiscing about the days when they learned to use The Bluebook--back when that wasn't its official name, back when it was shorter, back when it wasn't even blue. For you young'uns who want to...

"On Language" columnist William Safire died Sunday at 79

Posted on September 28, 2009
A Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, author, political pundit and college drop-out (who was damn proud of it), many readers of this blog may know his work best from his syndicated New York Times column called "On Language." From the NYT...

becoming a legal writing professor

Posted on September 27, 2009
I recently received an e-mail from a reader of this blog, inquiring how one goes about becoming a legal writing professor. My response was to highly recommend she read two relevant articles, and then she would know what more specific...

May my clothes please the court . . .

Posted on September 27, 2009
If you are appearing before U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis (E.D.N.Y.) or Queens County housing court Judge Anne Katz (and probably a lot of other judges), you need to dress appropriately. A lawyer who wore jeans and a baseball cap...

driven to writing poems

Posted on September 25, 2009
Like many of us, legal writing professsor John Murphy is in the middle of grading 1L memos. Unlike the rest of us, he was inspired to write a poem: Ode to the Author of Memo No. 36. Your memo is...

Comment alert: "Bringing life to legal writing: how to use literary journalism in capital litigation"

Posted on September 25, 2009
The above comment by UMKC law student Kate Paulman appears in 77 UMKC L. Rev. 1147 (2009). From the abstract: Elements and Guidelines of Literary Journalism What will make Literary Journalism an easy style for capital litigators to employ is...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

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...