What’s in a Name? Abbreviating Case Names

My first-year law students are beginning to learn about legal citation.  Today we discussed a question that sometimes causes confusion:  whether to abbreviate the first word of a case name.  The answer requires a student to synthesize a few rules from the Bluebook.

Bluebook Rule 10.2.2 states that all words listed in Table 6 (the table of abbreviations) must be abbreviated, even the first word in a party name.  Table 6 notes that a word of eight letters (or more) may be abbreviated at the author’s discretion if substantial space is saved.  Abbreviated words are punctuated by a period, unless the abbreviation is formed with an apostrophe (Corp., but Ass’n).

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Paul Dacier (L ’83) Assumes Presidency of the Boston Bar

Paul Dacier
Paul Dacier (Boston Globe)

An important part of professionalism is, well, participating in the profession. The Law School has a rich record of alumni and faculty involvement in most walks of the profession, including leadership positions in local and state bar associations. Many alumni have also been recognized for their outstanding work as lawyers.

Paul Dacier (Arts ’80; L ’83) is part of this distinguished cohort. In 2013 Paul has garnered well-deserved recognition for his legal work on behalf of EMC Corp., while also serving as the President of the Boston Bar Association (BBA) for 2013-14. Indeed, the Boston Globe reports that Paul is the first general counsel to assume the BBA’s presidency in its over 250 year history.

Paul is general counsel for EMC, a $20 billion, publicly traded corporation with over 60,000 employees and a legal department of over 100 lawyers. EMC is one of the nation’s leading corporations specializing in information storage (“the cloud”) and related technology. Under Paul’s direction, the legal department has successfully defended EMC’s position in high-visibility patent litigation and developed innovative approaches to mergers and acquisitions. The National Law Journal recently named EMC’s legal department as the Boston Legal Department of the year (August 2013).

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Professor Greipp Receives AWL Community Involvement Award

pic3Professor Melissa Greipp received the Community Involvement Award from the Milwaukee chapter of the Association for Women Lawyers (AWL) at its annual luncheon on September 10. Professor Greipp received the award for her work with the Summer Youth Institute, which was held at Marquette University Law School this past July. (Professor Greipp blogged about the program here.)

Presenting the award was the Honorable Nancy Joseph. Judge Joseph praised Professor Greipp’s ability to take 23 diverse students between the ages of 13 and 16 and teach them, in five short days, about hierarchies of authority, reading and analyzing cases, professionalism, and becoming a lawyer. In addition, Professor Greipp gave students a legal problem and worked with them to prepare an appellate oral argument on that problem. Then, at the conclusion of the Institute, students participated in oral argument before actual lawyers and judges. Professor Greipp did all this, said Judge Joseph, “with grace, love, and passion for the law.”

Congratulations to Professor Greipp.

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