Announcements

The Legal Writing Institute is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to exchange ideas about legal writing and to provide a forum for research and scholarship about legal writing and legal analysis. The Institute is currently housed at Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia.

The Institute promotes new activities through a newsletter, published twice a year; a scholarly journal, published about once a year; and a national conference that has been held every other year since 1984. It has also sponsored several international conferences on legal writing. It annually offers a writer's workshop for developing scholars in the field.

The Institute has close to 2000 members representing all the ABA-accredited law schools in the United States. The Institute also has members from other countries, as well as from English departments, independent research-and-consulting organizations, and the practicing bar. Anyone who is interested in legal writing or the teaching of legal writing may join the Institute.

Membership is free. To join, click on the membership link on LWI's website at http://www.lwionline.org/


Table of Contents

Thorough Academic Legal Research Will Improve Your Papers

Shawn G. Nevers, Brigham Young University - J. Reuben Clark Law School

How to Critique & Grade Contract Drafting Assignments

Robin Boyle, St. John's University School of Law

Strategies to Increase the Availability of Skills Education in China

Brian K. Landsberg, University of the Pacific (UOP) - McGeorge School of Law

The Citation of Blogs in Judicial Opinions

Lee F. Peoples, Oklahoma City University School of Law

LEGAL WRITING ABSTRACTS
Sponsored by the Legal Writing Institute

"Thorough Academic Legal Research Will Improve Your Papers" Free Download
Student Lawyer, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 8-9, October 2009

SHAWN G. NEVERS, Brigham Young University - J. Reuben Clark Law School
Email:

When writing their first academic papers for law school, law students will quickly discover that academic legal research is a bit different than the legal research needed for a motion or a brief. Written for Student Lawyer Magazine, this column discusses some of the helpful tools and techniques used in academic legal research. Topics discussed include the use of law librarians, finding a topic, the literature review, interdisciplinary research, and fifty-state surveys.

"How to Critique & Grade Contract Drafting Assignments" Free Download
The Tennessee Journal of Business Law, Vol. 297, 2009

ROBIN BOYLE, St. John's University School of Law
Email:

This article represents the transcribed proceedings of Professor Robin Boyle’s speech given in May 2008, for the Center for Transactional Law and Practice at Emory University School of Law, at a conference entitled “Teaching Drafting and Transactional Skills - the Basics and Beyond.� Prof. Boyle’s presentation at the conference described course content for her upper-level seminar on contract drafting. She also suggests ways to critique students’ contracts submitted for coursework.

"Strategies to Increase the Availability of Skills Education in China" 
Pacific McGeorge Global Business & Development Law Journal, Vol. 22, p. 45, 2009

BRIAN K. LANDSBERG, University of the Pacific (UOP) - McGeorge School of Law
Email:

For those who wish to promote experiential legal education, strategies for doing so can be roughly divided into internal and external strategies: those within the academy and those in the broader world. Examination of these strategies reveals that Chinese legal educators have the opportunity to learn from both the successes and the mistakes in other countries and to adapt experiential education to the Chinese system. Change may come incrementally, but we must be aware that a watered down version of experiential education would ultimately be counter-productive.

"The Citation of Blogs in Judicial Opinions" 

LEE F. PEOPLES, Oklahoma City University School of Law
Email:

This article reports the results of an exhaustive study examining the citation of blogs in judicial opinions. The article begins with an exploration of opinions citing blogs for their discussion of substantive legal issues. The unique status enjoyed by several boutique blogs is examined including the importance of Douglas Berman’s Sentencing Law and Policy blog in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Blakely and Booker decisions. The citation of blogs for factual information is discussed and the impact of these citations on litigants’ constitutional and procedural rights, the law of evidence, judicial ethics, and the judicial role in the common law adversarial system are explored.

Serious questions about the preservation of blogs cited in judicial opinions have yet to be answered. The way that blogs are cited in judicial opinions varies widely. Some judges do not provide enough information to accurately retrieve the blog post viewed by the court. Blog entries frequently change after they are posted. Some blog entries and entire blogs disappear without warning. There is currently no uniform approach to archiving or preserving blogs. Detailed statistics on the completeness and accuracy of citations to blogs in judicial opinions are provided. A set of best practices detailing when and how blogs should be cited is proposed. The Judicial Conference’s recently released Guidelines on Citing To, Capturing, and Maintaining Internet Resources in Judicial Opinions are discussed and critiqued. Solutions explored at the Future of Today’s Legal Scholarship Symposium held at the Georgetown Law Center in July of 2009 are evaluated. The article concludes with a discussion of the impact of blogs on the future of the law.

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Solicitation of Abstracts

The Legal Writing Institute's SSRN Journal provides a forum for posting both completed works and works in progress that relate to all issues in the legal writing field. The journal seeks articles that cover topics including (1) effective ways to teach legal writing; (2) the doctrine of legal writing and lawyering, including persuasive and effective techniques; (3) legal research; (4) oral communication and advocacy; and (5) other related topics to legal writing.

To submit your research to SSRN, log in to the SSRN User HeadQuarters, and click on the My Papers link on the left menu, and then click on Start New Submission at the top of the page.

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If your organization is interested in increasing readership for its research by starting a Research Paper Series, or sponsoring a Subject Matter eJournal, please email: RPS@SSRN.com

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Directors

LSN SUBJECT MATTER EJOURNALS

A. MITCHELL POLINSKY
Stanford Law School, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Email: polinsky@stanford.edu

BERNARD S. BLACK
University of Texas at Austin - School of Law, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), Northwestern University - School of Law, Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
Email: bblack@law.utexas.edu

RONALD J. GILSON
Stanford Law School, Columbia Law School
Email: rgilson@leland.stanford.edu

Please contact us at the above addresses with your comments, questions or suggestions for LSN-Sub.

Advisory Board

Legal Writing

COLEEN M. BARGER
Associate Professor of Law, UALR William H. Bowen School of Law

MARY BETH BEAZLEY
Associate Professor of Law, Ohio State University - Michael E. Moritz College of Law

LINDA L. BERGER
Professor of Law, Mercer University School of Law

ROBIN BOYLE
Professor of Legal Writing, Coordinator of Academic Support Program, Assistant Director of Writing Center, St. John's University School of Law

LINDA H. EDWARDS
Macon Professor of Law, Mercer University School of Law

KRISTIN GERDY
Professor and Director, Rex E. Lee Advocacy Program, J. Reuben Clark Law School, BYU

LAUREL OATES
Professor and Director of Legal Writing, Seattle University School of Law

TERRILL POLLMAN
Ralph Denton Professor of Law , William S. Boyd School of Law UNLV

RUTH ANNE ROBBINS
Clinical Professor of Law, Rutgers School of Law - Camden

LOUIS J. SIRICO
Professor of Law, Director of Legal Writing, Villanova University School of Law

MICHAEL R. SMITH
Winston S. Howard Distinguished Professor of Law & Director of Legal Writing, University of Wyoming College of Law

KATHRYN STANCHI
Associate Professor of Law, Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law

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