Legal Writing Prof Blog

Bluebook Bloopers

Previous editions of the Bluebook did not require authors to indicate that a Restatement was published by the American Law Institute. Every legal researcher knows that, and it's frankly silly to require legal citations now to include that information.

Here's what the 21st edition of The Bluebook requires on page 20:

• Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90 (Am. Law Inst. 1981).

The 21st edition also contains what we're going to call a "Bluebook Blooper." Page 131 of the current edition of the Bluebook contradicts what's on page 20, and requires this instead:

• Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90 (Am. L. Inst. 1981).

Perhaps there's some mysterious justification for requiring "Am. Law Inst." on one page and "Am. L. Inst." on another. But we'd like to remind the Bluebook editors that earlier editions instead just required the year, because everyone knows that the Restatements are published by the American Law Institute.

• Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90 (1981).

(mew)

CFP: Transnational Conference on the Future of Legal Education, the Practice of Law, and the Judiciary

October 15 is the deadline to submit proposals for presentation at the Transnational Conference on the Future of Legal Education, the Practice of Law, and the Judiciary with a focus on Disruption in the Legal Sector: How Technology Can Enable Educators, Students, Lawyers, and Judges Around the Globe to Stabilize the Sector and Provide Access to Justice. The conference will be held on Zoom in February.

(mew)

Justice John Browning of Texas Installed as Vice-President and President-Elect of Scribes

Justice John G. Browning of Texas has been installed as Vice-President and President-Elect of Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers.

Justice Browning was appointed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals by Texas Governor Greg Abbott on August 24, 2020. Before joining the Court, he was a trial and appellate lawyer for thirty-one years as a partner with large national law firms and his own small law firm. While in private practice, Justice Browning’s vast experience encompassed personal injury and wrongful death; product liability; commercial litigation; intellectual property disputes; employment matters; consumer protection and Deceptive Trade Practices Act ("DTPA") cases; professional liability; health care; class action litigation; defamation and media law; and cyberliability and data privacy. He is admitted in both Texas and Oklahoma, as well as before the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas, the Western District of Oklahoma, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Browning received bachelors degrees in History and Comparative Literature in 1986 from Rutgers University, where he was a National Merit Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, and Henry Rutgers Scholar. He received his J.D. in 1989 from the University of Texas School of Law, where he received awards for legal writing and advocacy. A former varsity tennis player and teaching professional, Justice Browning won tournaments at the local, state, national, and international levels. During his years in private practice, Justice Browning was rated “AV Preeminent” (5.0 out of 5.0) by Martindale-Hubbell, designated a “Texas Super Lawyer” from 2005-2020, and named to a variety of “Best Lawyers” lists and trial lawyer honorary societies.

Justice Browning has a long record of leadership and service to the bar, and has served as Chair of the Texas Bar Journal Editorial Advisory Board, as Chair of the Computer & Technology Section of the State Bar, as an appointed member of the Professional Ethics Committee, as a member of the State Bar Grievance Committee, as a member of the State Bar Jury Service Committee, and as President of the Rockwall County Bar Association. He also serves on the UT Law Alumni Association Executive Committee. Justice Browning is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society.

A noted legal author and CLE speaker, Justice Browning has received the Bar’s highest honors for legal writing, legal ethics, and public service. These include the State Bar of Texas Presidents’ Certificate of Merit; the Texas Bar Foundation’s Dan Rugeley Price Memorial Award; the Lola Wright Foundation Award for lifetime contributions to legal ethics; the Texas Bar College’s Patrick Nester Award for Outstanding Achievement in Continuing Legal Education; the Texas Bar College’s Jim Bowmer Professionalism Award; the Texas Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Law Review Article of the Year Award; the Texas Bar College’s Outstanding CLE Article of the Year Award; the Houston Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Legal Article of the Year Award; the DRI’s G. Duffield Smith Outstanding Publication of the Year Award; the J.L. Turner Foundation Award for Contributions to Legal History; and the Burton Award for Distinguished Achievement in Legal Writing (2009, 2010, 2012, 2014). Justice Browning is the author of four law books, more than forty law review articles, and hundreds of other articles on legal subjects.

Justice Browning follows Dean Susan Duncan of the University of Mississippi School of Law, who was previously Vice-President and President-Elect of Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers. She became President of the organization last Friday.

Click here for more information about Scribes.

(mew)

Dean Susan Duncan of Mississippi Installed as President of Scribes—The American Society of Legal Writers

Susan Duncan, Dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law, has been installed as President of Scribes—The American Society of Legal Writers. She follows the presidency of Professor Mark E. Wojcik of the UIC John Marshall Law School, who completed his term of office last Friday and passed the gavel to Dean Duncan.

Dean Duncan has served in national leadership positions on several boards that focus on the development of new legal writing professors. She was President of the Legal Writing Institute from 2006 to 2008 and was the 2007 Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research. She also was the representative of the Association of Legal Writing Directors to the American Bar Association Council for the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. Dean Duncan was also Associate Executive Editor from 2006-2011 for the Journal of Law and Education.

Dean Duncan frequently presents on legal writing and education law topics. Her work has been honored by the 2010 Louisville Bar Association Award for Distinguished Service, the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award from Louis Brandeis School of Law, and the 2016 Kentucky Bar President Special Service Award. Dean Duncan is the first woman to serve as Dean of the University of Mississippi Law School other than in an interim capacity. Her teaching and research interests include lawyering skills, education law, and restorative justice.

Before joining the faculty at Ole Miss, she served as Interim Dean at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, where she began as an adjunct in 1997 and became a full-time faculty member in 2000. She served as Chair of the University of Louisville’s Commission on the Status of Women. She also had previously taught legal writing in Tennessee as an adjunct professor at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis. Dean Duncan has also been a visiting professor at the University of Montpellier (France), the University KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), the Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz Germany), the University of Leeds (England), and the University of Turku (Finland).

Justice John Browning of Texas was installed as the Vice-President and President-Elect of Scribes.

Click here for more information about Scribes.

Webinar: Principles of Good Drafting

The International Association of Young Lawyers ("AIJA") will host a webinar on "Principles of Good Drafting" on Wednesday, October 7, 2020, at 16.00 CEST (Central Europe). Click here for more information (and then click on "Events"). The seminar is free for AIJA members and 100 Euros for non-members (so you might as well join!).

(mew)

 

Submit Your Winning "Best Brief" for the 2021 Scribes Brief-Writing Award

Did a moot court team at your school win a Best Brief Award last year?

Here's a reminder that Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers--is accepting submissions for the 2021 Brief-Writing Award. The deadline for submitting briefs is October 19, 2020.

In 1996, Scribes launched a Brief-Writing Award to recognize and celebrate excellent student-written briefs. Scribes believes that legal writing is of paramount importance to law students and their careers, and it hopes to encourage good legal writing by recognizing its finest examples.

The Scribes Brief-Writing Award for 2021 considers submissions of moot-court briefs that have won first place in a national or regional moot-court competition during the 2019-2020 academic year (September 2019 to August 2020). The award committee then selects the best briefs from all of the winning briefs submitted.

In 2020, the first-place winning brief was authored by students Allyson E. Lynch, Paul T. Madden, and Sarah L. Martin of Belmont University College of Law. The second- and third-place brief awards were won by students at South Texas College of Law. The students who won the the second-place award were Meredith J. Clark, David V. Dorris, and Sandra M. Guillen. South Texas College of Law. The winners of the third-place award were William N. Haacker, John Wooldridge, and Greg A. Urbach.

In 2019, the first-place winners were Caitlin Messinger and Keriann Smith of the Florida State University College of Law in Tallahassee. Their award was presented in April during a Scribes CLE and Award Ceremony at the Law Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (The 2019 award ceremony also included the presentation of the Lifetime-Achievement Award to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, so it was quite a day for those students!) The second-place winners for 2019 were Cesar Escalante and Jonathan Peña of the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas. Two schools tied for third place: Jacob Cunningham, Jessica Finley, and Sara Kuebel won from the Louisiana State University Paul M. Herbert Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Gabriella Gallego and Alyxandra N. Vernon won from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California.

To submit a brief that won a national or regional moot court competition during the 2019-20 academic year, email an electronic pdf of the winning brief to [email protected] The subject line of the email should indicate that it is a Scribes brief nomination from "____" Law School (the student's law school, not the school that hosted the moot court competition). The body of the email should set forth the name of the competition, the names of the students who wrote the brief and their school, and the name of the faculty coach or advisor, if any. The pdf (or Word) copy of the winning brief cannot include any information that identifies the student authors or their school. Please check the cover page, signature pages, and headers and footers.

Please contact Scribes Executive Director Philip Johnson at [email protected] if you have any questions about submitting a brief for the competition (or if you need an extra day or two to submit your school's winning briefs).

Mark E. Wojcik, President, Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers

National Day on Writing -- Words and Power

Wednesday, October 21, beginning at 12 PM Central Time

National Day on Writing is an initiative of the National Council of Teachers of English to amplify the importance of writing and celebrate it. In honor of National Day on Writing, you are invited to watch Write Chicago: Words and Power, a virtual 90-minute panel discussion that brings together a diverse and dynamic group of writers to discuss storytelling as a tool for advocacy and how strong writing skills are universal. Please use this link to learn about the program and to register. 

Panelists include:

Leslé Honoré, a Blaxican Poet, artivist, and author of Fist & Fire , a collection of powerful, unflinching poems that confront issues of social justice through the lens of real human lives and voices, and dive into the flames of love within the context of a relationship.

Maureen Kelleher, a senior writer and editor at Brightbeam. She is a veteran education reporter, a former high school English teacher, and also the proud mom of an elementary student in Chicago Public Schools.

Loy A. Webb, a Chicago born playwright, tv/film writer, and attorney. Her plays include The Light (MCC Theater 2018/2019, Outer Critics Circle nomination for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play; The New Colony, 2017/2018, Joseph Jefferson Award), and His Shadow (16th Street Theater 2019/2020).

Mark E. Wojcik, a professor at UIC John Marshall Law School. He teaches Lawyering Skills, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, International Trade Law, Torts, International Law, and Human Rights in a Changing Society.

(dwa)

Southern Illinois University is Hiring

Southern Illinois University in Carbondale is hiring a Clinical Assistant Professor for Lawyering Skills I and II, starting in August 2021.  

Click here for more details.

(mew)

Fordham is Hiring

Fordham University School of Law invites applications for a faculty position as the Director of Legal Writing and Lawyering. Laterals and experienced candidates on the entry-level market are welcome to apply. The Director will be a faculty member involved in teaching, administration, and faculty governance. The position offers a unique opportunity to take what is already an excellent legal writing and lawyering program to the next level. Applicants should have a J.D. and strong academic credentials, as well as substantial experience in practicing law and in teaching legal writing and professional skills. Fordham University is committed to excellence through diversity and welcomes candidates of all backgrounds. The position would start on May 1, 2021.

Please email a curriculum vitae and cover letter (addressed to Prof. Benjamin C. Zipursky, Chair, Search Committee for Director of Legal Writing and Lawyering, Fordham Law School) to: [email protected]

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Early applications are strongly encouraged.

Hat tip to Kim Holst.

(mew)