Oct

28

Writing Competition Success

Posted by: Rebecca K. Blemberg | October 28, 2009 | 1 Comment

I am pleased to announce that 3L Douglas Hoffer just won third place in the James E. Beckley National Writing Competition, which is sponsored by the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association.  Doug received a cash prize, and his paper, “A Square Peg in a Round Hole:  Why the Investment Company Act is a Poor Regulatory [...]

Oct

11

Law School Hosts Regional Writing Conference

Posted by: Rebecca K. Blemberg | October 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment

This weekend, from Friday evening through Saturday, the Law School hosted the Central Region Legal Writing Conference, welcoming more than 100 attendees, not only from the central United States but from all over the country.  The theme was “Climate Change:  Alternative Sources of Energy in Legal Writing,” and those who attended seemed energized by the [...]

Oct

3

Questions of Professionalism

Posted by: Rebecca K. Blemberg | October 3, 2009 | 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about professionalism lately.  Two discussions in the past week or so have stuck with me.
The first discussion appeared in the Law Librarian Blog (thank you, Professor O’Brien, for forwarding it.)  In Florida, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Presnell issued an order denying a plaintiff’s motion for voluntary dismissal for
Failing to comply with [...]

Sep

24

It’s National Punctuation Day

Posted by: Lisa Mazzie | September 24, 2009 | 13 Comments

Today is National Punctuation Day.  Yes, there really is such a day (it’s the sixth annual one, actually), and grammar geeks like me are celebrating.  There’s even a national baking contest where contestants are supposed to bake something in the shape of a punctuation mark.
Lynne Truss, the author of the best-selling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves:  [...]

Sep

18

Mastering the Art of Legal Writing

Posted by: Melissa L. Greipp | September 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Wednesday night I went to see the movie Julie & Julia, which is about a writer, Julie, who blogs about working her way through chef Julia Child’s famed cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year.  I loved everything about the movie, and as such, I’m starting off this blog post with a discussion [...]

Sep

10

Legal Writing Monograph Series

Posted by: Melissa L. Greipp | September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Last year, the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) Board of Directors created a Monograph series.  The Monograph’s first electronic volume is now available on the LWI website.  The focus of this first volume is “The Art of Critiquing Written Work.”  Our own Professor Alison Julien worked on this project.  Professor Jane Kent Gionfriddo stated in a post [...]

Aug

28

Storytelling in Appellate Brief Writing

Posted by: Melissa L. Greipp | August 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

At the end of July, both Professor Michael Smith and I attended the Applied Legal Storytelling Conference at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.  The conference was entitled “Chapter 2:  Once Upon a Legal Story” and focused on storytelling in “ways that will directly and tangibly benefit law students (i.e. future lawyers) and [...]

Aug

22

Welcome to Professor Michael Smith

Posted by: Melissa L. Greipp | August 22, 2009 | 4 Comments

This fall, Marquette University Law School is fortunate to have Professor Michael R. Smith as a Robert E. Boden Visiting Professor of Law.  Professor Smith is visiting from the University of Wyoming College of Law, where he is the Winston S. Howard Distinguished Professor of Law and the Director of Legal Writing.  Professor Smith’s work in [...]

Aug

21

“Be Wise: Revise,” Lisa A. Mazzie Advises in Latest Wisconsin Lawyer Magazine

Posted by: Jessica E. Slavin | August 21, 2009 | 2 Comments

For nearly a year, several of the Law School’s legal writing professors have been offering legal writing advice in a semi-regular column in the Wisconsin Lawyer magazine.  The latest such contribution is Lisa Mazzie’s “Be Wise: Revise,” which provides “guidelines for creating effective style through revising – guidelines on when to revise, how to revise, [...]

Aug

15

Stephen Jay Gould on Jim Bowie, Bill Buckner, and Storytelling

Posted by: Melissa L. Greipp | August 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

Stephen Jay Gould, the eminent scientist and Harvard professor, was interested in human pattern recognition in stories.  He referred to the patterns that human minds want to create as “canonical stories.” His essay entitled “Jim Bowie’s Letter and Bill Buckner’s Legs”, which appears in I Have Landed:  The End of a Beginning in Natural History, [...]

Aug

1

What’s Your Archetype?

Posted by: Melissa L. Greipp | August 1, 2009 | 1 Comment

This past year I came across a terrific article by Professor Ruth Anne Robbins on using archetypes to develop a client’s story.  (Harry Potter, Ruby Slippers and Merlin: Telling the Client’s Story Using the Characters and Paradigm of the Archetypal Hero’s Journey, 29 Seattle U. L. Rev. 767 (2006)).  An archetype is an innate prototype, or [...]

Jul

15

Judicial Verbosity – It’s Not Easy Being Green

Posted by: John J. Kircher | July 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

An article, “Conciseness in Legal Writing,” by my colleague Lisa Hatlen in the June 2009 issue of Wisconsin Lawyer [at 21] got me thinking.  My conclusion: I am surprised that “green” organizations do not picket at various appellate courthouses in this country, especially in Madison, Wisconsin.  A lot of trees are paying a price for [...]

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