Marginalization Matters: Discipline-Building in the Legal Writing Community

17 Pages Posted: 6 Jun 2023 Last revised: 23 Feb 2024

See all articles by Ellie Margolis

Ellie Margolis

Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law

Date Written: June 2, 2023

Abstract

Amy Soled’s Unending Conversations essay, The Legal Writing Community's Bonds Enable It to Flourish, responds to Kevin Bennardo’s controversial essay, Legal Writing’s Harmful Psyche, arguing that Bennardo’s analysis of why legal writing scholarship is not rigorous is flawed and that his proposed solutions are unwarranted. Bennardo's thesis is that legal writing scholars are "protectionist" and unwilling to engage in rigorous critique of each other's work, preventing the growth of legal writing as a discipline. Soled’s analysis provides an excellent critique, but doesn’t focus on what I see as a key problem with Bennardo’s essay—the failure to address the effect of marginalization on the growth of Legal Writing as a scholarly discipline. In this essay, I address the problem with critiquing the discipline without addressing the marginalization of legal writing scholars within the legal academy. I then provide an alternate critique that begins with an understanding that the cohesiveness of the legal writing community is a strength rather than a weakness, but acknowledges that there is room for the discipline to continue growing.

Keywords: Legal writing, legal research & writing, marginalization, inequality, feminism, critique, scholarly, academia, legal academia, legal academy, law review, legal scholarship, publication, scholarly, discipline, discipline-building

JEL Classification: K10, K40, K49

Suggested Citation

Margolis, Ellie, Marginalization Matters: Discipline-Building in the Legal Writing Community (June 2, 2023). Temple University Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2024-06, 6 Stetson L. Rev. 1 (2023), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4467402

Ellie Margolis (Contact Author)

Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law ( email )

1719 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
United States

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