Legal Writing Prof Blog

2025 Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition

The 2025 problem for the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is scheduled to be released within the next 24 hours. Click here for more information.

Approximately 700 schools from 100 countries are expected to participate in the Jessup, making it the world's largest moot court competition.

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Dayton is Hiring

The University of Dayton School of Law invites applications for multiple tenure-track Assistant Professor positions to begin August 16, 2025. Areas of need include contracts, business organizations, torts, criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, family law, property, wills and trusts, secured transactions, and tax. Click here for more information.

Hat tip to Daniel Craine.

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Case Western Reserve is Hiring

Case Western Reserve University School of Law is accepting applications for a Lawyering Skills Assistant Professor position beginning July 2025 to teach in its Legal Writing, Leadership, Experiential Education, Advocacy, and Professionalism (“LLEAP”) program. Click here for more information.

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Avoiding the Word Salad Bar

Gregg Hake has some advice for avoiding "word salad," that mixture of unintelligible, incoherent, empty words.

 

The short article has some best practices and exercises for writing and for avoiding word salad, such as watching a movie or reading a magazine article that's more 50 years old to see how writers said things back in the day. Click here to read Word Salad or Le Mot Juste?: How to Speak and Write Better by Gregg Hake (2010).

 

Hat tip to Michael Goldblatt.

 

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The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

The next foreign, international, and comparative law webinar at the Law Library of Congress will be “Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan," on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Please register here.

In this webinar, visiting Professor Ugyen Thinley from the Jigme Signye Wangchuck School of Law in Bhutan will present the idea of Gross National Happiness as a guiding principle for the government reaching back for centuries in Bhutan. The penal code of Bhutan states: "The purpose of the government is to provide happiness to its people. If we cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist." Professor Thinley will discuss how this statement is implemented in Bhutanese legislation while reviewing the history of reflecting happiness in the nation's laws and an overview of the current legal system and legal resources. 

Hat tip to the Law Library of Congress.

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The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

The next foreign, international, and comparative law webinar at the Law Library of Congress will be “Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan," on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Please register here.

In this webinar, visiting Professor Ugyen Thinley from the Jigme Signye Wangchuck School of Law in Bhutan will present the idea of Gross National Happiness as a guiding principle for the government reaching back for centuries in Bhutan. The penal code of Bhutan states: "The purpose of the government is to provide happiness to its people. If we cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist." Professor Thinley will discuss how this statement is implemented in Bhutanese legislation while reviewing the history of reflecting happiness in the nation's laws and an overview of the current legal system and legal resources. 

Hat tip to the Law Library of Congress.

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The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

The next foreign, international, and comparative law webinar at the Law Library of Congress will be “Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan," on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Please register here.

In this webinar, visiting Professor Ugyen Thinley from the Jigme Signye Wangchuck School of Law in Bhutan will present the idea of Gross National Happiness as a guiding principle for the government reaching back for centuries in Bhutan. The penal code of Bhutan states: "The purpose of the government is to provide happiness to its people. If we cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist." Professor Thinley will discuss how this statement is implemented in Bhutanese legislation while reviewing the history of reflecting happiness in the nation's laws and an overview of the current legal system and legal resources. 

Hat tip to the Law Library of Congress.

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LWI Biennial Conference

Just a reminder that the Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute will take place at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, Indiana, from July 17-20, 2024. Click here for more information.

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Next Year's Jessup Problem

Here is the subject matter of the 2025 problem for the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the world's largest moot court competition:

“The Jessup 2025 Problem will present the following issues: (1) the rights and obligations of other members of the international community when two persons claim to be the legitimate president of a state; (2) invocation of immunity for government officials accused of grave violations of human rights; (3) the legal consequences of receding coastlines for the maritime zones of coastal states; and (4) the interpretation of the compromissory clause in a treaty creating a regional organization.”

Hat tip to Michael Peil and the International Law Students' Association.

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New LWI Board Members Elected

The Legal Writing Institute announced that the following individuals were elected as new Board members:

• Jacob Carpenter (Marquette)
• Lori Johnson (UNLV)
• Kristen Murray (Temple)
• Robert Parrish (Emory)
• Em Wright (Stetson)
• Nancy Soonpaa (Texas Tech)
• Ellie Margolis (Temple)

Hat tip to Abby Perdue, President-Elect, Legal Writing Institute and Professor of Law at Wake Forest University School of Law.

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A New Edition of Plain English for Lawyers

Carolina Academic Press announced that it is about to publish a new edition of Plain English for Lawyers, the classic text originally authored by Richard Wydick and now updated by Amy Sloan. As the CAP website states:

Plain English for Lawyers has been a favorite of law students, legal writing teachers, lawyers, and judges for almost 40 years. The seventh edition, co-authored by Amy Sloan, updates this classic text while preserving all the approaches that make it such a standard in the field. In addition to guiding students through techniques for producing clear writing, this edition includes new exercises, a discussion of the principles of document design, a chapter on the appropriate uses of generative AI for writing, and detailed coverage of best practices for correct pronoun usage and avoiding gendered language. Plain English for Lawyers remains (in size only!) a little book, small enough and palatable enough not to intimidate overloaded law students.

The book can be used as one of your course texts or as a recommended supplement.

Click here for more information about the seventh edition (including how to request an examination copy for your fall syllabus).

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Oklahoma is Hiring

The University of Oklahoma College of Law is hiring an Assistant Professor of Legal Writing to join its LRW faculty beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.

Hat tip to Erin DeWalt.

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Zoom Workshop for New Legal Writing Scholars

On Monday, May 13, 2024, the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law will host an online workshop for new legal writing scholars. You may be a “new” scholar if you’ve published "fewer than two full-length law review articles or book chapters," but the organizers intend this definition of "new" to include rather than exclude participants.

In this Zoom workshop, participants can receive feedback on their work and learn from fellow legal writing scholars. Please come with a draft of any length, of any kind of project (non-law-review articles welcome!), and you’ll leave the day with feedback on your specific project and thoughts from colleagues around the country on how to succeed in academic writing.

Contact Professor Susan McMahon, Professor Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff, or Professor Mary Bowman for more information (they're all at ASU).

Hat tip to Susan A. McMahon

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Memphis is Hiring

The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law is hiring two entry-level, tenure-track faculty positions. Course needs include Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Contracts, and other transactional law courses.

More information is available at the University of Memphis’ WorkForum link: https://workforum.memphis.edu/postings/37078.

Hat tip to Professor Regina L. Hillman.

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In Memoriam: Professor Nancy L. Schultz

Chapman University Dale Fowler School of Law in southern California shared the following announcement about Professor Nancy Schultz, who passed away unexpectedly in December:

It is with profound sorrow that we announce the sudden and unexpected passing of Professor Nancy L. Schultz, the Kennedy Professor of Dispute Resolution and the Director of Chapman’s Competitions Program, who passed away at her home on Thursday, December 15.

Nancy, as she insisted on being addressed by students and faculty alike, was synonymous with student advocacy at the Fowler School of Law. She will be remembered as a tireless advocate for the thousands of students she taught and coached during her 27 years at the Fowler School of Law. Nancy was recruited to the Chapman family in 1996, where she created the Competitions Program from scratch and personally oversaw each competition team for almost three decades.

She began her academic career as a legal writing professor at Villanova University Law School, before becoming Director of Legal Research and Writing at the George Washington University Law School. Throughout her career, she co-authored textbooks and published articles in legal writing, with an emphasis on the benefits of speaking, writing, and drafting in plain English. She was one of the rare coaches who was equally able to teach appellate advocacy, trial skills and technique, and alternative dispute resolution in all its forms: negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and client counseling. With Nancy at the center, Chapman quickly rose to national prominence in trial advocacy. To this day, Kennedy Hall is crammed with trophies won by Fowler School of Law students and teams, including seven individual and team awards that Nancy’s teams collected from the Fall of 2023 competitions alone.

As impressive as her resume was, Nancy stridently opposed self-promotion in any form, and insisted that the attention be placed squarely on her students. She prioritized intelligence and charisma, but only through integrity and fair play, “Win or lose, we play clean” was her mantra. It was often Nancy who first showed students what they were capable of achieving, and through her example they brought accolades to Kennedy Hall–later becoming judges, law firm partners, senior litigators, public interest lawyers, legal specialists, mediators, in-house attorneys, politicians, and professors.

Nancy’s home was in Orange, and her hub was in Kennedy Hall, but she was truly a citizen of the world–her expertise was recognized globally and she had friends on every continent. She served in significant leadership roles for the International Client Counseling Competition Committee, the International Law School Mediation Tournament, and the International Negotiation Competition Committee, where she was the North American representative to the Executive Committee. She could speak fondly of the friendships, the tournaments, and travels in Ireland, Great Britain, Brazil, Dubai, Singapore, and all over Europe and the United States.

At the conclusion of the 2023 fall semester, Nancy returned from the United Arab Emirates, where she had gathered with friends and administrators from around the world at the International Ad Hoc Mediation Competition. Yet again, her team of three Fowler School of Law students had won gold. Without a single word about the hundreds of hours she spent preparing and coaching for this triumph, nor discussing her role in establishing a seat at the table for Chapman, her note to faculty read:

“[Our students] represented us with grace, enthusiasm, civility, and professionalism. It is hard to imagine a better performance, not only in terms of talent and skill, but also in terms of just being good human beings. I can hardly remember when a team was so universally liked and respected by judges, competitors, and organizers.”

We are sure that Nancy would take great joy in knowing that her final email to the Chapman community was to share the success of her students.

Her devastating loss is felt keenly by her deepest source of joy and pride, her daughter Lindsay and her son Kyle, and by her three remaining siblings, Lisa, Cindy, and Carl. Nancy’s greatest wish was to create a better world through her children and her students, and as a result, she will be remembered by a global circle of friends. May we keep them in our thoughts during this time of loss, and may our students and faculty carry forward Nancy’s legacy of success, integrity, and humility.

An online Memorial Service is planned for  January 25, 2024, at 5pm PST.

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San Francisco is Hiring

The University of San Francisco School of Law is hiring for Visiting Professor positions in a variety of areas for the academic year 2024-25.

They  are also searching for a Visiting Professor of Practice with expertise in various areas of corporate law. This position is renewable for an additional three years.

Hat tip to Adam Abelkop, Associate Professor & Director of Legal Writing at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

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Wolters Kluwer integrates GenAI into its legal research products

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory (LR) announced in a press release a new feature for legal professionals: Generative Pre-training Transformer (GPT)-generated summaries of court rulings. GPT summarization harnesses generative AI (GenAI) to simplify legal research, eliminating (it says) "the need to read through multiple court cases, saving valuable time." This innovation in beta will initially serve legal professionals using the Wolters Kluwer Online research platform in Germany before being rolled out to other products.

Martin O’Malley, CEO of Wolters Kluwer LR, is quoted in the press release as saying: “We recognize our customers’ need for efficiency and accuracy in legal research. With the integration of GPT-generated summaries into our legal research products, we’re transforming the way in which legal professionals assess and interpret case law. This innovative feature is a testament to our commitment to empowering our customers with our deep domain knowledge, the highest editorial quality and the latest in GenAI technology, ensuring they remain at the forefront of the legal field.”

Wolters Kluwer’s GPT summarization feature significantly reduces the time spent on legal research by:

• Providing more than tens of thousands of GPT-generated summaries for quick understanding of court decisions.
• Enabling easy categorization of relevance with comprehensive summaries that encompass the facts and history of the case.
• Reducing the volume of documents requiring in-depth review through efficient content assessment.

Wolters Kluwer LR recently published Future Ready Lawyer 2023 report, which found 73% of lawyers expect to integrate GenAI into their legal work.

(Adapted from a Wolters Kluwer press release)

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Sue Liemer to Receive the 2024 AALS LWRR Section Award

The Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research has chosen Professor Sue Liemer (Elon University School of Law) to receive its Section Award, which recognizes lifetime contributions to the field of legal writing, reasoning, and research. 

The award will be presented at noon on January 4, 2024 at the AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The presentation will be made in the Marquis Salon 3 (Level M2) of the Marriott Marquis DC Hotel

Professor Liemer joined the Elon Law faculty in North Carolina in 2017 and was appointed Elon Law’s associate dean for academic affairs in 2021. She had previously served as the Director of Lawyering Skills at Southern Illinois University School of Law. She is also an editor emeritus of the Legal Writing Prof Blog.

Click here to learn more about Professor Liemer and the award.

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Janet Sinder to Receive AALS Law Libraries and Legal Information Section Award

The Association of American Law Schools Section on Law Libraries and Legal Information has announced that its Section Award will go to Janet Sinder (Professor Emerita at Brooklyn Law School).

The award will be presented at the 2024 AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Janet Sinder joined the Brooklyn Law School faculty in 2012 as the Director of the Brooklyn Law School Library. Her professional interests include the intersection of library services and information technology, copyright, journal open-access issues, as well as legal history. An active member of the American Association of Law Libraries, she served as the editor of Law Library Journal, the association’s official journal, from 2007 to 2013.

Professor Sinder was awarded the 2014 Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship by the American Association of Law Libraries. 

Prior to coming to Brooklyn Law School, Professor Sinder worked at the law libraries of Duke University and the University of Maryland. She began her legal career as an Assistant Defender at the Office of the State Appellate Defender in Springfield, Illinois.

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2024 Global Legal Skills Conference

The next Global Legal Skills Conference will take place 4-6 June 2024 in southern Italy at the University of Bari.

If you're planning to attend, this is a good week to book travel and hotels because of the "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" sales offered by many companies this week. We recommend that you make reservations that will be possible to change or cancel in case your travel plans change.

Bari is served by an international airport. A train takes you quickly to the city of Bari, quite near the University of Bari where the GLS-16 Conference will be held. You can arrange your air travel to arrive in or depart from another Italian city such as Rome or Naples.

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