2014’s Blawg 100 top vote getters

Feb 1, 2015 3:20 AM CST

Word choice influences the way jurors understand your argument

Feb 1, 2015 2:20 AM CST

Linda Greenhouse and Jonathan Turley discuss the courts and the press (podcast with transcript)

In this month's Asked and Answered podcast, moderator Stephanie Francis Ward talks to Linda Greenhouse and Jonathan Turley about the past, present and future of legal journalism, and how it has influenced courts.

Jan 5, 2015 8:32 AM CST

Bryan Garner offers a Magna Carta style guide

The Library of Congress has staged a magnificent exhibit on Magna Carta and its history. It is, after all, the 800th anniversary of the Great Charter of 1215. To commemorate the event, Justice Randy J. Holland of the Delaware Supreme Court has edited a book to accompany the exhibit: Magna…

Jan 1, 2015 5:52 AM CST

How lawyers can craft a case narrative to spark jurists’ and jurors’ interest

Peter Brooks, the esteemed narrative theorist, tells an anecdote about a brilliant graduate student in his advanced narrative theory seminar at Yale.

Jan 1, 2015 2:30 AM CST

All is not as it seems for 9th Circuit clerk in ATL founder’s new novel (podcast)

Dec 17, 2014 8:30 AM CST

Female law review authors are cited at a higher rate than men, study finds

The conventional wisdom is that scholarly research by women is cited less often than that of male authors. But that doesn’t hold true for legal scholarship, the National Law Journal (sub. req.) reports. Law review articles with at least one female author are cited at a higher rate than those…

Dec 12, 2014 5:45 AM CST

How are your punctuation skills? Try this comparison exercise to find out

My fellow lawyers often bristle when I tell them that, on the whole, our profession can't punctuate. It's rare that I don't have to change commas, colons or hyphens in almost every line of type in any brief or contract I review. But that's because I'm applying the standards of…

Dec 1, 2014 4:40 AM CST

Voting opens for the 2014 Blawg 100

We’re thrilled to announce that our 8th annual list of the top 100 best blogs for a legal audience, the 2014 Blawg 100, is now live. “No longer to be confused as a fad or the realm of the tech-savvy, law blogs are rooted in the legal media landscape,” ABA…

Nov 24, 2014 3:40 PM CST

Regaining the Joy of Reading

At a law firm retreat, a partner approached me during a break. She had a problem she hoped I could solve: "I can't read anymore. I've lost the ability. I used to read great literature—all the time—but now I can't. Ever since I went to law school, I find myself…

Nov 1, 2014 5:50 AM CDT

Shaping Your Legal Storytelling

I've taught at five law schools for almost 30 years now. Here's one takeaway from the experience: Law schools tip the storytelling practitioner's factually complex, often indeterminate and ambiguous world upside down. Our pedagogy drains the emotional life from the stories and human conflict beneath the surface of appellate cases—the…

Oct 1, 2014 7:00 AM CDT

10 Tips for Better Legal Writing

Oct 1, 2014 3:00 AM CDT

Clearly, justices don’t observe ban on the word ‘clearly’

Legal writing instructors may insist there’s no need to use the word “clearly” to emphasize that a point is clear, but some people aren’t getting the message. A search for the term “clearly” in U.S. Supreme Court opinions found the word “clearly” was used in 105 opinions since Jan. 9,…

Sep 22, 2014 6:15 AM CDT

Stop: Before you hit ‘send’...

Sep 1, 2014 8:40 AM CDT

ABA Publishing puts growing emphasis on legal books that interest general audiences

Sep 1, 2014 7:30 AM CDT