Pragmatic, clear, systematic, and without equal | Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student...

Worth It | Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review | Eugene Volokh

books:


	• Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review Eugene Volokh Foundation Press, 2007 - 323 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Pragmatic, clear, systematic, and without equal

Former clerk to the Supreme Court and Professor at UCLA Eugene Volokh has given a remarkable gift to the legal community that would be a bargain at twice the price. It delivers pragmatic and thoughtful advice in a remarkably clear and lucid style. Moreover, it is not simply clear for law books--frankly, a low bar to pass--Volokh writes for the ordinary public daily on his eponymous blog (where you can read the first chapter of this book), and the skills required for that task manifest themselves in this work.

Academic Legal Writing is also extremely systematic. Every aspect of the paper is taken into consideration, from the approach to research, to avoiding off-putting humor or politically charged language, time tables for submissions, and so on, even including how to draft letters to professors and law reviews asking them to look over your work and to consider it for publication.

Academic Legal Writing is really in a class by itself. That said, perhaps I can indicate its greatness by invoking a few other names. Academic Legal Writing is a perfect companion volume to Bryan Gardner's The Elements of Legal Style. It is as clear and concise and accessible as Marvin Chirelstein's Concepts and Case Analysis in the Law of Contracts, and it deserves to be as ubiquitous and is certainly as valuable, thoughtful, and comprehensive as Joseph Glannon's E&E Civil Procedure and Erwin Chemerinsky's Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies. If you know these books, you should be going "wow." If you don't, and you are going to law school, I advise reading all of them. (Also Getting to Maybe, which I never found compelling, but am in the distinct minority view on.)

I read Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk's Scholarly Writing for Law Students, which is also good and which Volokh recommends. Academic Legal Writing appears to be a very conscious next step beyond that book. In a perfect world, buying and reading both would be advisable. In the real world, I read Scholarly Writing once, Academic Legal Writing many, many times. Academic Legal Writing is your desert island pick.

Please do yourself a favor and read this book. If you don't, you will simply be doing all of your competitors a likely unrequited kindness.

One final note: Professor Volokh is a conservative of the thoughtful and sober variety. I am a liberal of the sort who avidly studies the Endangered Species List to see if "Thoughtful Conservatives" have been listed yet. This is not an issue: Professor Volokh's political beliefs are discernible in this book only by the most careful parsing: in some of his examples, he points out the misleading use of statistics in gun violence, an academic preoccupation of his. You could then do the math and figure out that he has at least one conservative leaning. Otherwise, his politics would be utterly inscrutable. And, frankly, this book would be on my bookshelf even if Professor Volokh had say, written a memo arguing that the Geneva Conventions were outdated and pointless. John Yoo, your path to redemption is clear.

for more information click here

Pragmatic, clear, systematic, and without equal

for more information click here

Worth It

Succinct, straightforward, info not available elsewhere (as easily), time-tested advice. Clearly worth having.

for more information click here

Essential for Student Law Review Members

Just like the title, this book is a great guide to "Academic Legal Writing." Step by step, the author takes you through the process of writing a publishable legal article. Every aspect is covered: from how to form a thesis to how to publicize and publish your finished product. Every law review student should read this book while writing his or her student Note.

Designed to help law students write and publish articles, this text provides detailed instructions for every aspect of the law school writing, research, and publication process. Topics covered include law review articles and student notes, seminar term papers, how to shift from research to writing, cite-checking others work, publishing, and publicizing written works. With supporting documents available on http://volokh.com/writing, the book helps law students and everyone else involved in academic legal writing: professors save time and effort communicating basic points to students; law schools satisfy the American Bar Association's second- and third-year writing requirements; and law reviews receive better notes from their staff.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

hot