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Legal Writing

 
Typography for Lawyers
June 01, 2009 at 1:04 PM
If your brief or pleading or memorandum is unpleasant to read, the quality of your reasoning and arguments can be muted. Matthew Butterick, formerly a typeface designer and now a litigation attorney in Los Angeles, has created Typography for Lawyers to give lawyers and law students an introduction to the principles of typography.
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CALI Lesson on California Citations
March 24, 2009 at 3:04 PM
"Introduction to the California Style Manual"
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Top SCU-affiliated downloads from SSRN
July 08, 2008 at 2:22 PM
Here is a list of the most downloaded articles from SCU-affiliated scholars on the SSRN Network for the past 12 months.
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Professors get their "rankings" on SSRN
June 13, 2008 at 8:48 AM
The New York Times has an interesting article about the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and its increasing influence on academic legal publishing. A new feature on the SSRN which tallies downloads of each article is being used by professors to gauge the impact of their articles before actual publication. The article also comments how the increased accessibility of legal publishing, through technologies such as the SSRN, is expanding the audience and impact of these materials.
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Proofreading checklist for law school papers, notes, and comments
June 13, 2008 at 8:39 AM
A new article entitled, "Training Independent Learners: Student Self-Editing Checklist for Law School Papers, Notes and Comments" is now available on SSRN. Written by faculty at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, the articles lists many of the most basic principles of good, clear writing and many of the most common flaws in students' papers. It requires the student to certify, by signing and noting the date and time, that the student has checked the paper for each of the points listed.
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Controversy over recent Harvard Law Review article
June 06, 2008 at 1:55 PM
There has been a considerable amount of controversy created by a recent Harvard Law Review note entitled, "Never Again Should A People Starve in a World of Plenty". The article heavily criticizes the pursuit of "big-firm" employment over public interest and social justice law. It has been critiqued by a number of notable conservatives and libertarians among legal blogs.
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New peer-reviewed open access journal from Harvard Law School
June 04, 2008 at 10:48 AM
A new peer-reviewed open access journal is available from Harvard University's School of Law. The journal is scheduled to begin publication in Fall 2008. If you are interested in submitting to this journal follow the instructions from their website.
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Podcast Series on Law Practice
June 02, 2008 at 9:44 AM
From Suffolk University Law School Legal Practice Skills Program
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Supreme Court Justices on Legal Writing and Advocacy
February 28, 2008 at 3:07 PM
Interviews with U.S. Supreme Court justices on legal writing and advocacy
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The Million Dollar (Canadian) Comma
October 27, 2006 at 10:40 AM
A million-dollar contract dispute turns on the placement of a comma.
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Student Writers
September 12, 2006 at 7:10 PM
An article in the September 8th Chronicle of Higher Education lists the "Seven Deadly Sins of Student Writers." It is written by Ben Yagoda, Professor of English at the University of Delaware and the author of a forthcoming book entitled When you catch an adjective, kill it. Law students might also be interested in what he has to say about dangling modifiers, punctuation, spell-check errors, etc.
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List of Law Review Articles Citing Legal Blogs
August 20, 2006 at 11:40 AM

3L Epiphany continues to explore the impact of blogging on legal scholarship with this post, which lists law review articles that cite to blogs as well as the blogs cited most frequently by law review articles. 

 
 
Volokh's Tips on Law Review Write-On Competitions
May 05, 2006 at 10:55 AM

Professor Eugene Volokh has posted several valuable tips on the Volokh Conspiracy about how to succeed during the law-review write-on process.  If you haven’t read some of his longer works on academic legal writing, I highly recommend the following:

 
 
 
 
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