There's plenty of conventional wisdom about what makes a good legal brief or court opinion. Judge Robert E. Bacharach of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says when judges socialize, their conversations often devolve into discussions about language and pieces of writing that they enjoy or revile.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a corrected transcript of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s oral arguments comment about flu deaths after some observers claimed that he overstated the numbers.
“Just in the Nick of Time” is part memoir, part courtroom drama and part medical mystery that examines whether David Savitz’s handsome, charming client had a real psychiatric disorder or was a crafty manipulator trying to fake his way out of a murder conviction.
First-edition books owned by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including works signed by writer Toni Morrison, journalist Gloria Steinem and the late Justice Antonin Scalia, will be available in an online auction starting Jan. 19.
The collected papers of late U.S. Supreme Court justices are typically of interest primarily to judicial biographers, legal researchers and a few journalists. On Dec. 1, during oral arguments in one of the most consequential cases of the term, a new aficionado of the genre revealed himself: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
In her debut novel, All Her Little Secrets, attorney Wanda M. Morris has written a legal thriller full of corporate intrigue and small-town secrets. Morris takes readers inside Atlanta boardrooms and back into the past of her heroine, Ellice Littlejohn.
James Patterson, long known as a master of make-believe, took on nonfiction a few years ago. So he may be more qualified than anyone to confirm one of the oldest adages in the book: Truth is stranger than fiction.
This year, Bryan Garner gave us tips for using legal dictionaries, a three-part series on how to manage a day’s worth of legal writing, and an ode to a state bar journal that’s championing the use of plain English.
Many dictionary users don’t realize the extent of the improvements that take place from edition to edition of a dictionary. Perhaps that’s especially true with Black’s Law Dictionary, which has been substantially remade over the past quarter-century.
Whenever the ABA Journal has conducted a survey to find the best legal movies or the best legal plays, 12 Angry Men has made the list. But the path to becoming a classic was not a simple one, and the man behind the script was not a simple man.
In 2006, the Dallas Mavericks were in the NBA finals. The team’s owner, Mark Cuban, gave two tickets for the opening game to his brother Brian to give to friends. But the younger sibling had other plans: He traded them to his drug dealer for $1,000 worth of cocaine.
A tiny typographical error in a 1928 U.S. Supreme Court opinion had a big impact after it was picked up in subsequent opinions and used to bolster arguments for property rights, a law professor has found.