Legal Writing Monograph Series

13156535v1_240x240_Front_Color-BlackLast 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 to the LWI listserv that the volumes “will focus on a specific topic relevant to teaching, curriculum, scholarship or status of Legal Writing professionals and will include substantial, well-developed pieces of scholarship in the form of law review articles or book chapters that have been previously published elsewhere.”

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You’re a What?

Did you say you’re an American Bar Association (ABA) Law Student Division (LSD) Liaison?  What exactly is that?  First of all, I have to admit that as of February 1 of this year I had only the vaguest idea what the ABA even was.  I had no idea the ABA had a Law Student Division and certainly wasn’t aware that law students had the opportunity to be liaisons to the various sections, divisions, and standing committees of this national organization. I am happy to say I have learned a lot about the ABA in the past seven months.

I began my law school career in the fall of 2007 as a part-time evening student.  As is true of most part-time students, my law school experience consisted of attending classes at night when most of the faculty, staff and full-time students are gone for the day.  I was fortunate to be able to attend an occasional talk over the lunch hour because I worked on campus, but otherwise law school consisted of going to class and doing homework . . . and managing to get to “bar review” a few times during the semester.

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Constitution Day Symposium on Judicial Elections

JustRunGreen09On Saturday, I ran a 5K in Stevens Point, in support of Justiceworks, Ltd., a nonprofit organization “dedicated to the advancement of programs and practices that secure right relationships between offenders, victims, and their communities” in Portage County.  My father lives and works in that community and asked me and my sisters to participate in the race.  It was incredibly pleasant, a flat run along the river in picture-perfect weather.

I knew very little about the organization before agreeing to do the run, and in my post-race googling I discovered that Justiceworks is a co-sponsor (along with the Portage County Bar Association and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point) of an upcoming symposium entitled Judicial Elections:  Navigating the Collision Course (note to lawyers: 7 CLE credits approved).  The conference will take place on September 17, 2009, and the lineup of presenters is impressive, including Bert Brandenburg, Executive Director of the national Justice at Stake Campaign; Thomas J. Basting, Sr., who served as President of the Wisconsin State Bar Association in 2007-08; and Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

The conference brochure promises that the program will “raise awareness about the significant issues confronting the State of Wisconsin in its judicial elections,” noting that

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