It’s a Rap. Really.

In Advanced Legal Writing class, students discuss different persuasive techniques that lawyers and judges use in their writing.  We debate the pros and cons of using literary references, illustrative narratives, pop culture references, historical examples, and unusual formats and organizations.

I never once, however, discussed (or even considered) the possibility that a litigant would submit a brief in the form of a rap.   The pro se litigant submitted the “rap brief” and won.

As professional writers, should we lawyers be concerned?  I can’t imagine this form of writing starting a trend, but does its use suggest something about a changing level of formality in court documents?

I’m not sure.  I think it may be a fluke, but I’m troubled.   

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The Holiday Formerly Known as Good Friday

The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent a letter of complaint regarding the  recognition of Good Friday as a campus holiday by fifteen of the state’s sixteen technical colleges, apparently pursuant to collective bargaining agreements with instructional staff. The FFRF argues that closing on Good Friday (not just calling the off day “Good Friday’) is inconsistent with a 1996 decision of the Western District of Wisconsin invalidating a state law that mandated the closing of public facilities for the purpose of worship.

The prior decision seems distinguishable to me given the statute’s explicit reference to closing for a religious purpose. It’s hard, in light of that, not to see the statute as violating current Establishment Clause doctrines.

These cases tend to turn on some ascription (often fictional) of a religious or secular purpose to the state.  FFRF will have to show that the recognition of the Good Friday holiday has a religious purpose or amounts to an endorsement of Christianity. It may well lose because a court will conjure some secular justification for recognition of the holiday, e.g, that the day also known as Good Friday has become a traditional opening to the spring vacation.

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Outliers and the Health and Wellness Fair at MULS

I appreciated Professor Dan Blinka’s thoughtful post on the book Outliers.  The book begins with a quote from the book of Matthew in the New Testament:  “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.  But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”  Matthew 25:29.  Malcolm Gladwell refers to this quote in the title of the first chapter as the “Matthew Effect.” 

This passage from Matthew always makes me squirm, because it doesn’t seem to square with another famous passage from the Bible that “the meek shall inherit the earth.”  Gladwell’s first chapter similarly made me slightly uncomfortable, because it suggests boldly that such undeniably unfair factors as the month into which a person is born may determine whether they end up as a professional hockey player.  Gladwell may well be right, and his insight is in its own way stunning, but it still makes someone who likes to be in control of his or her own destiny feel suddenly out of control.

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