31 Monday Jul 2017
Posted in Law Reviews, Legal Writing, Research
≈ Comments Off on Updated Annual Guide to Law Review Submissions.
Tags
James B. Levy, Law Journals, Law Reviews, Legal Skills Blog, Legal Writing, Professor Allen Rostron, Professor Nancy Levit, SSRN
The Latest Update to Rostron’s and Levit’s Annual Guide to Law Review Submissions, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Blog
Thinking about submitting an article to a law review or journal? If so, you need to read this. It will give you everything you need to know about which publication is accepting submissions, required procedures and formats, and more. -CCE
20 Thursday Oct 2016
Posted in Brief Writing, Judges, Legal Writing
Judges Want Briefs to Be Shorter but Lawyers Push Back, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog
Often courts have local rules limiting the length of a brief. Have you ever wondered why? In everything you’ve ever heard or read about good legal writing, can you imagine a judge saying this?
“Yes, please, write a long, detailed brief. Use as many obscure legal authorities as possible. I have loads of time and plenty of staff to look up each one. Repeat your argument several times to make sure I know how important it is. Above all, make it as hard to read as possible.
I want lengthy quotations. Ideally, make them at least a page long, if not longer. One sentence paragraphs are the best! And by all means, pile on the legalese. Verbosity and obscure language is always appreciated.”
Of course not. They simply do not have the luxury of time to read huge briefs, especially if they are poorly written. I have said before that, while working for an Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice, I literally saw a bad brief go flying across the room. The Judge, in disgust, tossed it aside, and picked up the other side’s brief. Ouch! -CCE
11 Sunday Oct 2015
Posted in Note Taking, Office Procedures
≈ Comments Off on Take Notes By Hand, Not On A Laptop, To Improve Your Memory Retention.
New Study Finds Taking Notes By Hand “Significantly Improves” Word Recall Compared To Typing, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog
In the old days before laptops and other digital devices were the norm, we took notes by hand. When I took notes rather than observing and listening in a hearing, meeting, or at trial, I thought it helped me to notice more details that stuck in my memory. I have not had the opportunity to use a laptop or other digital device to take notes. I cannot say whether handwriting or typing improve memory retention. But it is an interesting idea. -CCE
The study was conducted by a team that includes Professor Anne Mangen (U. Stavanger, Norway) who is one of the foremost researchers studying the effect of hardcopy versus screens on comprehension and retention of information. This new study is called Handwriting versus Keyboard Writing: Effect on Word Recall and is available at 7(2) Journal of Writing Research 227 (2015) and can also be accessed online here. . . .
25 Saturday Jul 2015
Posted in Emails, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Technology
≈ Comments Off on How To Avoid The Emails We Wish We Had Never Sent.
Tech Tip Of The Day: Add A Two Minute Delay To Sending Emails, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog
This is a great tech tip from the Harvard Business Review blog that most of us should probably implement. It involves programming your email account to wait two minutes before each message is sent. It’s a great fail safe measure to prevent those emails we regret as soon as they’re sent and the typos (and omitted attachments) we don’t catch until it’s too late. . . .
16 Tuesday Jun 2015
Posted in Citations, Legal Writing, The Bluebook
≈ Comments Off on A New Bluebook Citation Guide.
FYI – A New User’s Guide To The 20th Edition Of The Bluebook Will Be Released Next Month, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog
The new 20th edition of the Bluebook is out now and thus West Academic Press plans to publish next month a new user’s guide to go along with it called Anthon’s The Bluebook Uncovered: A Practical Guide to Mastering Legal Citation. . . .
07 Sunday Jun 2015
Posted in Discovery, E-Discovery, Legal Technology
≈ Comments Off on Why eDiscovery And Legal Technology Should Be Required In Law Schools.
Tags
E-Discovery, James B. Levy, Law Schools, Law Students, Legal Skills Blog, Legal Techology, Luddites
Law Schools And The Need To Teach Ediscovery Practice Skills, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog
While some state bar associations’ ethical opinions are requiring its members to keep up to date with legal technology, law schools do not seem to have gotten on board. If lawyers already practicing are considered behind if they do not aggressively incorporate legal technology in their practice, shouldn’t law schools be leading rather than following? Paralegal programs – are you paying attention? -CCE
Though many legal practice areas have been in decline since the Great Recession, the demand for eDiscovery services has skyrocketed. This post from Bloomberg’s Big Law Business blog says that the law school curriculum needs to likewise evolve by providing more training opportunities that teach the next generation of lawyers these vital practice skills . . . .
15 Sunday Mar 2015
Posted in Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Brief Writing, Editing, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, Plain Language, Proofreading, Readability
≈ Comments Off on Are Shorter Appellate Briefs Better? Appellate Judges Seem To Think So.
Tags
Appellate Brief Writing, Appellate Judges, James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog, Legal Writing, Louis J. Sirico Jr., The Wall Street Journal Law Blog
Federal Appellate Judges Want To Shorten The Length of Briefs, Lawyers Object, by Professor James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog
If an appeal is extremely complex, would a reduction in the size of a brief compromise the ability of a party to win an appeal to a federal appellate court? Apparently, appellate judges do not think so.
Before making up your mind, please read Professor Sirico’s posts, also included by Professor Levy in his original post. It may not be a question of length, but experience. What do you think? -CCE
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has posted this story about the reaction by many appellate attorneys to a proposal that would reduce the word count on federal appellate briefs under the federal rules of appellate practice from 14,000 to 12,500. (Interestingly, my co-blogger Professor Sirico reported last month on a new study (and here) that supports the lawyers’ objections to the proposed rule change insofar as the study found that longer briefs filed by appellants ‘strongly’ correlates with success on appeal. However, the authors of the study cautioned against inferring that it is word count, rather than the complexity of the underlying issues which may require more thorough explanations, that explains the correlation). . . .
04 Sunday Jan 2015
Posted in In Custodia Legis
≈ Comments Off on Have Law Schools and Bar Exams Dropped The Ball On Legal Research?
Tags
Advanced Legal Research, James B. Levy, Legal Analysis, Legal Research, Legal Skills Prof Blog, Professor Patrick Meyer, State Bar Exam, Thomson Reuters
The Legal Research Skills New Attorneys Need For Practice, by James B. Levy, Legal Skills Prof Blog
Knowing how to use book s is still one of them according to a new article by Professor Patrick Meyer, Director of the Law Library at Detroit Mercy School of Law. The article, called Law Firm Legal Research Requirements and the Legal Academy Beyond Carnegie, is available at 35 Whittier L. Rev. 419 (2014). From the introduction:
According to quantitative research conducted by Thomson West (now Thomson Reuters), new associate attorneys can expect to spend 45% of their time conducting research. Yet despite this high percentage, criticism of the research abilities of new associates persists. . . .
There have been a handful of important recent studies on practice skills that post-date the Carnegie Report, and they are reviewed in this article. All of these studies support a stronger emphasis on legal research training in law schools, and all but one either suggest, or directly call for, an integrated approach where some tasks are taught in both the online and print formats. All but one of these studies surveyed practicing attorneys. . . . All of these studies show that legal academia must devote more time to teaching legal research, and all but one support my conclusions: that attorneys still use books to conduct research, book usage occurs much more than most people think, and law schools need to teach both online and print-based research for some tasks.
New attorneys frequently lack basic knowledge of how to use research resources, yet this knowledge is the link between legal research and legal analysis. . . In short, law schools can do a better job at teaching legal research.
Part II of this article begins with a brief review of the history of legal research deficiencies in the law firm setting and progresses to a summary of several new studies on law firm research practices and abilities. . . . In Part III, I propose a three-part plan to remedy the lack of research acumen amongst new attorneys. First, law schools must assure that all students receive an appropriate amount of basic research instruction in the first year curriculum, to include some print-based research instruction. Second, Advanced Legal Research must be a required course. Finally, I would like to renew the call to include a research component on each state’s bar exam. [Emphasis added.]
The Researching Paralegal 
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