Marquette Hosts 2023 Junior Faculty Workshop

Last weekend, it was my privilege to participate in the Law School’s Ninth Annual Junior Faculty Works-in-Progress Conference. I look forward to this event every year, when we invite a group of scholars at the outset of their legal academic careers to present draft papers to each other and to commenters from the Marquette faculty, followed by an hour of nonstop feedback and discussion. The energy of these workshops is illustrated by the fact that in our last couple of sessions, participants were slamming their cards down on the table like Jeopardy contestants to grab a top spot in the comment queue!

This year we had a fabulous group of participants:

  • Julie Campbell, Faculty Fellow at the Jaharis Health Law Institute at DePaul University College of Law;
  • Jade Craig, Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law (currently visiting at the University of Mississippi);
  • Alexandra Fay, Richard M. Milanovich Fellow at the Native Nations Law and Policy Center at UCLA School of Law;
  • Meredith Filak Rose, Senior Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge;
  • Jordana Goodman, Assistant Professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law;
  • Jason Reinecke, Assistant Professor at Marquette University Law School; and
  • Lauren Roth, Assistant Professor at Touro Law Center.

Commenters from Marquette included Prof. Christine Chabot, Prof. Alex Lemann, Prof. Michael O’Hear, and Prof. David Papke. The workshop was organized by Associate Dean Nadelle Grossman, Professor Kali Murray, and myself, with the expert assistance of Stephanie Danz, Jourdain LaFrombois, Ben Manske, and the Facilities student workers.

It is a wonderful opportunity for the law school to bring together such a talented group of legal scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds and fields that ordinarily would not be in close conversation with each other, and to be able to offer constructive feedback at a stage when it could have a meaningful impact. Thanks to everyone for participating!

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National Proofreading Day

It’s the week before Spring Break at the Law School, which can mean only one thing: 1L briefs are due.

It’s timely, then, that today is National Proofreading Day. (It’s also International Women’s Day.) International Proofreading Day “highlights the importance of proofreading our own work.”

That’s easy enough to say, but less easy to do. Or at least, less easy to do well. Among the tips to effectively proofread are:

  • Let it “bake.” I’m not sure where I first heard this phrase, but it refers to setting aside your writing before beginning to proofread it. I always suggest setting aside a brief or memo for a day or so, but I understand that amount of time is not always available. Any amount of time away, though, allows you to return to your draft with fresh eyes.
  • Proof in hard copy. Hard copy edits are a must. You will see things about writing in hard copy that you will easily miss if you proofread only on screen.

    list of proofreaders' marks from the Chicago Manual of Style
    List of proofreaders’ marks, from the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.
  • Learn proofreader marks. If you’re going to proof in hard copy, it’s worth it to learn the marks that editors use. Knowing these marks will speed up your proofreading and—if you’re on the receiving end of a proofread document—make sense when you go to make the changes.
  • Monotask. That is, remove distractions—like your phone, email alerts, an open browser. It’s easier to focus when the distractions are set aside.
  • Know your tendencies. Maybe you have trouble with correctly placing apostrophes or passive voice creeps into your sentences. Make a list of the writing habits you know you need to watch for in your own writing, then consult that list as you proofread.
  • Shun autocorrect. Autocorrect does not catch every error; in fact, it always skips over correctly spelled words that are incorrect in context. Just ask my 1Ls, who must watch out for singers who are waving rights, rather than signers who are waiving rights.
  • Read aloud. Or backward. Or out of order. Approaching your document differently allows you to see (or hear) what’s really there, rather than what you know you’re written.
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The Challenges Facing Podcast Hosts Protecting Trademarks

Cover of Adventure Zone graphic novelAmong the many technological changes in the 2010s was the rise of podcasts as a form of entertainment. Average people were able to purchase microphones and record conversations with their friends, family, or experts in a field, and then upload for people across the world to listen to.

Three brothers, Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy started recording the comedy-advice podcast “My Brother, My Brother, and Me” in 2010. After that podcast’s success, they went on to record several other podcasts, including “The Adventure Zone,” in which they play tabletop role-playing games with their father, Clint. This podcast has been done in three main storylines: “Balance,” “Amnesty,” and “Graduation.”

“The Adventure Zone” appears to be the most popular podcast released by the McElroys. Thousands of fans follow subreddits and Facebook pages and groups. “The Adventure Zone” has been adapted into a best-selling graphic novel, licensed for a tabletop role-playing game, and is currently being adapted for a possible animated show for the streaming platform Peacock.

With this fame has come devoted fans, some of whom make fan art and then sell it. This practice is largely disapproved by the McElroys, although they have not taken any legal action against creators of unauthorized merchandise. Justin McElroy has implied on Twitter that he is okay with people commissioning artists to draw characters from “The Adventure Zone.” This detail is lost by the fans, who treat all fan-creations for sale as bad. While the McElroys have created a podcast, which they appear to make money from, and they have a right to protect their creation from people seek to unscrupulously profit from it, there are challenges facing them, as well as other podcast hosts.

This is the focus of my paper You Must Roll 18 or Higher in Order for Your Claims to Succeed: Common Law Trademarks, Unauthorized Merchandise, and the Podcast “The Adventure Zone,” about which I was interviewed on the podcast “Ipse Dixit” by Prof. Brian L. Frye of University of Kentucky College of Law.

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