Closing panel at Education Symposium Sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association and SMU’s Caruth Institute for Children’s Rights, October 29, 2018. Held at the Belo Mansion in Dallas. (Photo from Belo Mansion Catering & Event Center) This post includes the bios of the panel speakers and links to information they have provided in advance of… Continue reading “The Next Chapter”: DBA Education Symposium
In short forms for cases in citation sentences in practice documents, the Bluebook permits the use of only one party’s name but in that event requires it to be the first party, unless that party is “a geographical unit, a government official, or another type of common litigant.” See rule B10.2. Note that this permits… Continue reading Choice of name in short forms for cases
OK, that’s a lot of alphabet soup. Allow me to translate: If you are attending the recruitment fair for the Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) Faculty Appointments Register (FAR), check out the information and networking reception for the Section of Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research (LWRR) on Friday, October 12, 2:00-3:30p.m. It’s scheduled in… Continue reading At AALS FAR? Check out LWRR!
I previously posted a very preliminary look at how legal writing could be made more comprehensible to all readers while satisfying the needs of law-trained readers using marginal notes for citations instead of footnotes. I continue to doubt that these ruminations will make any difference, but I had to take this to the next step… Continue reading Margin notes: An oblique solution to citing in-line vs. citing in footnotes
A couple weeks ago, I asked on the LRWPROF-L mailing list for folks to describe their 1L brief and oral argument competitions and promised to summarize what I learned and share it back. I thought it might make a good blog post, so here it is. Though I have given this summary the attention I… Continue reading 1L legal brief and oral argument competitions
Express your interest in collaborating on scholarship exploring the intersections of classical rhetoric and contemporary law DEADLINE EXTENDED: Preliminary proposals due September 14, 2018 October 5, 2018 (AoE) Classical Rhetoric & Contemporary Law, a national group of scholars in the legal academy broadly interested in rhetorical theory and particularly in classical rhetorical texts, has been… Continue reading CFP: Classical rhetoric & contemporary law
I’ve written an article that discusses the use of argumentation schemes in law, with a focus on the argumentation scheme for legal analogy. A common problem for 1L students in my experience, though, is that they apply “rule-based reasoning”—based on the deductive syllogism—a little too confidently in the beginning of their training. So for the… Continue reading Defeasible deductions?
The schedule for the Legal Writing Institute 2018 biennial conference in Milwaukee, July 11 — July 14, is published (version as of June 27), and it looks terrific, with a great focus on pedagogy and pedagogical research in the field! This blog post is about a subset of the sessions, those devoted to empirical study… Continue reading LWI 2018: Sessions on empirical study of legal communication
Among the law-related papers and panels at the 2018 Rhetoric Society of America conference is one that I’m coordinating. The speakers include Kirsten Davis, Stetson University College of Law; Francis J. Mootz, McGeorge School of Law; Susan Provenzano, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Susie Salmon, The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.… Continue reading Mooting classical rhetoric in contemporary legal education
Updated 5/25 to correct a couple entries based on the final schedule published this week; 4/30 to put in link to my session’s abstract; and 4/27 to add Maggie Franz’s session. The 2018 installment of Rhetoric Society of America’s biennial conference also marks the society’s 50th anniversary. Held in Minneapolis (which is beautiful this time… Continue reading Law and rhetoric at Rhetoric Society of America 2018
