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Showing posts from September, 2014

Think Before You Hit Send

E-mail is old hat for most law students, and by now, most of us professors have caught up too. Here's the thing: we often focus on what we are saying rather than how we are saying...er, how what we are saying is communicated. For the former, we have books to help you . But you might want to consider your communication style as well. The software company WordRake has a wonderful blog post series about e-mail communication, and one piece of information is particularly startling: “People consistently overestimate their ability to communicate effectively with email.” A 2010 study found that “participants lied 50% more when they negotiated over email compared with pen-and-paper.” One of the reasons, surmised researchers: “Emails are less permanent: it feels closer to chatting than writing a letter.” What's an e-mailer to do? Your best bet is to think before you hit the send button. Save a draft of your e-mail and revisit it in an hour or two. This approach might increase

Getting Good Help These Days - A Closer Look at Employment Law

Richard Susskind is trending on Twitter for his keynote address at Clio Cloud Conference . Mr. Susskind suggests law firm clients want "a fence at the top of the cliff, not an ambulance at the bottom." In other words, your goal as an attorney should be risk avoidance rather than risk management. Dispute avoidance is a far greater priority than dispute resolution, according to Mr. Susskind. I've always found Mr. Susskind's perspective persuasive. It makes good sense. Yet how often have you known someone to put off car maintenance including oil changes preferring to avoid the expense of something they don't think they need, only to have to pay an exorbitant bill for a serious car repair later? It seems perhaps people don't want an insurance policy. They don't necessarily want to involve the attorneys unless something has gone wrong. This approach can be disastrous in the employment world. Slate.com recently ran  In Defense of HR , an article which sugg

What Do Professors Do All Day?

Professors do a ton, from teaching to writing to volunteering. Perhaps you're curious what they write about but don't quite feel you have the time to commit to a 45-page law review article. That's what blogs are for. Many of our law professors blog on a regular basis, so you can read their timely insights on critical legal issues. Here is a list of blogs specifically written by Moritz professors. Of note, Doug Berman got in on blogging early, and his Sentencing Law and Policy blog recently had its ten-year anniversary. For blogs by other law professors around the country check out the Law Professor Blogs Network .

Ignoring Court Rules...Not Just for Less Experienced Attorneys!

Judicial opinions addressing publicly and for all time the misdeeds of attorneys (i.e., a bench slap ) are not uncommon. Whether its for poor legal writing or a brief riddled with inaccuracies that seem to amount to outright lies, judges hold officers of the court to high standards. Now, not everyone can be the Bryan A. Garner of the legal writing world, and sometimes you write what you think is true but your clients have misrepresented facts to you. Perhaps you deserve a pass in those situations. But there's one thing it is easy to get right: court rules about spacing and other technical formatting issues. For example, Rule 3.09 of the 2013 Rules of Practice for the Supreme Court of Ohio states (a) Every original document filed with the Supreme Court shall be single-sided, shall be typewritten or prepared by, computer, word processor or other standard typographic process, and shall comply with the requirements of this rule. (b) The text of all documents shall be at least

Celebrate Constitution Day

Although the Constitution has been around for more than 200 years, Constitution Day is a relatively new phenomenon.  As the Senate explains: "To encourage all Americans to learn more about the Constitution, Congress in 1956 established Constitution Week, to begin each year on September 17th, the date in 1787 when delegates to the Convention signed the Constitution. In 2004, Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia included key provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2005 designating September 17th of each year as Constitution Day and requiring public schools and governmental offices to provide educational programs to promote a better understanding of the Constitution." If you'd like to explore this legislative history in more detail, start with the historical and revision notes for 36 U.S.C. § 106 .  Not historical enough for you?  The ABA notes that we are nearing the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, contributing to this year's des

Asking for Help

We have one more story to add to the list of attorneys with mental health and addiction issues. Unfortunately, it's less frequent that we have stories of recovery to post, though a blog post from a few months back did highlight one attorney's success after getting help. In that post, we identified several resources here locally that are designed to keep you on track or get you back on track if you suffer a personal or professional setback. If you'd prefer to do some reading up before reaching out, we also have several books on wellness. In fact, we've pull all of our wellness books into a small collection in the Reserve Room, so you can quickly access them. We've written here in the past about exam stress, but really, law school can be stressful year round. It's not just the challenge of class; it's the challenge of figuring out a job or a career, perhaps for the first time. Don't worry if you're worried. Just ask for help.

The PACER Debacle

Librarians, researchers, and attorneys have come to love PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), the online database of federal pleadings. It's a terrific resource for those following cases or who need examples of real complaints or motions for summary judgment. When BloombergLaw came along, it made searching federal dockets even easier. Alas, PACER has disabled online access to selected court records for several appellate courts, and commercial databases (i.e., Bloomberg, Westlaw, and Lexis) will only carry what they have downloaded. In other words, they are not a complete substitute. For the latest updates on access, check out these excellent blog posts by librarians at the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library at UNC: Changes to Online Access to Federal Court Records  and What Happened to the Information Removed from PACER?

ABA Journal Fiction Prizes

The Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction has been awarded to John Grisham for Sycamore Row . We have the book in our collection if you need some light reading to take your mind off of studying. If that novel is off the shelf, you're welcome to any of the other John Grisham novels we have available: The Appeal The Associate The Birthday The Brethren The Broker The Chamber The Client The Confession The Firm The Innocent Man The King of Torts The Last Juror The Litigators The Partner The Pelican Brief The Racketeer The Rainmaker The Runaway Jury The Street Lawyer The Summons The Testament A Time to Kill Inspired by Mr. Grisham's success? Request a copy of How to Write and Sell Mystery Fiction . Simply click on the catalog link provided through the book title, then select "Request this Item" from the menu bar above the catalog record.

Celebrity Photos vs. Music Videos

Copyright is my bailiwick, so I was intrigued when Slate.com posted an article stating although        "[e]very day, movie and TV producers succeed in getting videos that have been posted without their consent taken down from major websites," celebrities cannot get photos they have taken with their own cameras taken down. In other words, copyright infringement is a claim available to some content owners but not others. What's up with that ? According to Slate, "Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act , or at least the courts’ sweeping reading of it, arguably allows them to publish these photos legally." What's one way to find this "sweeping" case law? Log in to Lexis.com and type "1996 Communications Decency Act" in the search bar. Select the "Legis" tab on the search results screen. Scroll down to 47 USCS 230. Scroll down and you can see cases decided on this section of the Act.

Cases in Contradiction

Confusion often marks the plight of the law student, especially in the first few weeks of this new endeavor.  Sometimes confusion may stem not from misunderstanding a case but from inconstant judicial logic. Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean at the UC Irvine School of Law, identifies logical variations in three recent Supreme Court opinions dealing with bankruptcy:  "All come to reasonable conclusions. But they are markedly inconsistent in their approach to interpreting the bankruptcy act and to statutory interpretation more generally."  Judicial inconsistency may be more common than you'd like , but some argue that it is not necessarily an evil.  Justin Driver , for example, discusses inconsistencies in one judge's work, Justice Stevens, deeming inconsistency a "virtue."  So if you see ambiguities, think about reasons underlying them as well as what advantages and disadvantages you see in them.