Law Review: Tom Mayo's Home Page

Contents (click on titles)
1. Writing for law reviews, and legal writing generally	2. WWW-based grammar and style guides	*3. Dealing with the "Blue Book* blues"**	4. References	5. Judicial clerkships

Here are some materials that may help make your experience on law review a little more productive and instructive, not to mention less random and harried.
U = "particularly recommended"

1. Writing for law reviews, and legal writing generally

Prof. Eugene Volokh's excellent instructional essay, "Writing a Student Article," offers invaluable pointers on selecting a topic, organizing the paper, writing and editing it, and establishing a timetable for the project. It's no longer available on the WWW, but it can be found on WestLaw (and not Lexis) in the Journal of Legal Education (48 J. Legal Educ. 247 (1998)), as well as in Chapter 1 of his estimable U ACADEMIC LEGAL WRITING (Foundation Press 2003) (see author's web page for this book).
On-line, Prof. Leora Harpaz has some useful comments to guide students writing notes and comments. I also particularly like Marshall Kapp's "Writing Research Papers: Top 10 Tips," THE LAW TEACHER (Fall 1999).

Fred Rodell: Goodbye to Law Reviews, 23 U. VA. L. REV. 38 (1936). Rodell's diagnosis of what ails law review writing ("There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.") is as correct today as it was in 1936. The original article, combined with his further reflections on legal writing style, appeared as Goodbye to Law Reviews--Revisited, 48 U. VA. L. REV. 279 (1962). For a cynical assessment of law reviews, it's hard to improve upon Rodell; and for a short critique of much that's wrong with legal writing, this is a good place to start.

U "Politics and the English Language," by George Orwell (1946) -- This is a great companion piece to the Rodell article and as wise an essay on the connection between sloppy (or subversive) thought and writing as has ever been written.

U Bryan Garner's "The Legal-Writing Skills Test," 5 SCRIBES J. LEGAL WRITING 107 (1994-1995) -- this diagnostic test will help you evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a writer and editor. (WestLaw; Lexis)

Rod Borlase offers valuable guides to legal research and legal writing: Law Library and Legal Research Guides.

Plagiarism resource page

Plagiarism & copyright

U Hamilton College's Writing Center -- see especially:

James W. Harper, Why Student-Run Law Reviews?, 82 MINN. L. REV. 1261 (1998) -- an overview of the arguments for and against student-run law reviews. Along the way, you can learn a lot about the history and traditions of student-run law reviews. (WestLaw; Lexis)

2. WWW-based grammar and style guides

U
One of the most ambitious and user-friendly sites is Hamilton College's Writing Center's home page, which includes
- Essentials of Writing (Hamilton College Style Sheet)
American Heritage Book of English Usage: from Bartleby.com
American Heritage Dictionary (unabridged, 4^th. ed., 2000): from Bartleby.com
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. (predecessor to the hugely successful "Strunk & White" [see below]): from Bartleby.com
U U.S. Government Printing Office's Style Manual

The Economist's Style Guide: very nicely done
On-Line English Grammar by Anthony Hughes
Grammar and Style Notes by Jack Lynch
"The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation," by Jane Straus
Big Dog's Bare-Bones Grammar -- grammar notes for the Millennial Generation
"Common Errors in English," by Paul Brians
"Eschew, Evade, and/or Eradicate Legalese," by Eugene Volokh -- same or similar list of no-no's as appears in "Writing a Student Article" and ACADEMIC LEGAL WRITING, supra
ClichéSite.com (phrases to avoid like the plague)
"Plain Language and the Law" -- resources from the Plain Language Network
And the American Copy Editors Society page can occasionally be helpful, especially their WWW discussion page (down the last time I checked) and Editing Guidelines booklet (more for newspaper and magazine editors, but a darned good guide with interesting self-testing feature)

3. Dealing with the "Blue Book blues"

U "Introduction to Legal Citation," by Peter Martin (Folios version of earlier edition)
There are at least two sites that offer suggestions for citation forms for electronic sources:
- University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science and
- Candace Elliott Person's Citation of Legal and Non-legal Electronic Database Information.

4. References

And, by all means, feel free to buy a book or two. Some of these should also be on the reference/resource shelf in the staff workroom. There are many to choose from; these are the ones I keep at my elbow (literally), and all deserve a U.

Bryan Garner's stuff

Academic Legal Writing by Eugene Volokh (Foundation 2003)

Fowler's Modern English Usage: 2nd ed. (my favorite) or 3rd ed. (roundly criticized by critics); see also Fowler's The King's English: from Bartleby.com

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

Strunk and White's Elements of Style, 4th ed. (or dip into the 1st edition, by Strunk).

Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage by William and Mary Morris

American Usage and Style: The Consensus by Roy Copperud

A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage by Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans

The Handbook of Good English by Edward D. Johnson

5. Judicial clerkships

Looking for information about federal law clerk positions? Here is one place to begin.

This page is the sole responsibility of Tom Mayo, not Southern Methodist University.
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Last updated: 05 June 2005
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