The Ginger (Law) Librarian

The winners in the Open, New Member, and Student Divisions will receive $650 , and the Short Form Division winner will receive $300 , all generously donated by LexisNexis. Co-authors of winning papers share awards. Recipients are recognized during award ceremonies at the AALL Annual Meeting and will be given the opportunity to present their papers in a program. See the Call for Papers website !

There's been much written about gender bias in legal writing and how legal writing instructors inhabit what is referred to as the " pink ghetto " of the legal academy (see, e.g.,  here , here ,  here , and here ). The pink ghetto of the legal academy refers to the lower status, lower paid positions that women often occupy. What's interesting is that law librarians are often left out of this discussion (though,  not always ). Historically, law librarianship has been a field dominated by women. In the 1999-2000 academic year, for example, 52 percent of law school library directors were women (up from 44 percent in 1994-95). ' In 1999, 67 percent of all academic law librarians were women. If directors were subtracted from that figure, the female percentage of nondirector librarians would be substantially higher than 67 percent.  Historical statistics on law library directors are instructive in another way. In 1950, 55 percent of the directors were women, but ...

A colleague sent me the following image of Samuel Williston with the research -- drafts and notes -- for his venerable treatise: This is an impressive image of a labor of love. We'll likely never see anything like it again (nor should we, poor trees). Just imagine the countless hours of toiling in the books that Williston (or his research assistants, as it were) undertook to develop the preeminent contracts treatise. This was certainly a golden age for the print-lined walls of the law library.  It's interesting to look at the tangible work product and understand the research behind it and compare it to what we're likely to see today. While we won't see piles of papers, we'll see documents stored in electronic folders. And while we won't, generally, toil in books, we are still toiling in electronic databases doing the creative analysis required of effective legal research.  After seeing the image, I was intrigued to read the accompanying article ...

Over the course of the last week or so, there's been a lively discussion on the LRW-PROF listerv about teaching legal research using books. The discussion started from this post: At SCU, we have traditionally held one or two class sessions in which students conduct legal research in the library in books.   Some of us are considering modifying, shrinking, or even eliminating these exercises to make more time for additional electronic research practice. We identified some theoretical pros and cons to this approach. We are curious to hear about practical effects from anyone who has gone through this process of shrinking or eliminating book research. What effects, good and bad, have you seen in your students' ability to research? Any flak from librarians or employers? I appreciate any ideas.  Here is a sampling of the responses: Sample Response 1: I have always taught a modicum of book research each year, and, at the very least, I introduce my students to...

While at AALL Management Institute last spring, one of the other attendees asked Maureen Sullivan, our fearless leader and management expert, how law libraries can stop "hemorrhaging talent." This question struck a chord. I love this profession, and it feels like a calling. But I often find myself asking "is it time for something else?" The sense from the room at Mgmt Inst was that I am not alone. And we are at a continued risk of losing talented, valuable librarians. We have to consider why we're losing folks to create change. I'll highlight a few reasons here: Librarianship is generally considered a "pink collar" profession. And we face many of the same issues that legal writing instructors face across the country . Like legal writing instructors, our positions are disproportionately occupied by women in less secure (generally staff), low-status positions.  As such, we are subjected to various microaggressions that are commonplace in str...

Too often, searching for relevant information and the ultimate analysis of facts to law is disjointed. That's because teaching the analysis of the law is often left up to the doctrinal professors or the writing professors. But analysis is inherent to the legal research process. Using the 4-step legal research process to find relevant information requires that the researcher has the ability to analyze the law to select the material that will aid in their arguments.  Legal research is inevitably a back-and-forth process. The researcher starts with secondary sources to get a better understanding of the cause of action. The researcher moves onto the codified law to understand what needs to be analyzed in light of the facts of the case. The researcher then continues with binding and persuasive precedent to craft arguments by comparing facts and analogizing or distinguishing from case precedent.  A researcher cannot begin to know what types of binding and persua...

While working as a Faculty Services & Scholarly Communications Librarian, I presume I am not alone in being asked to create an impact factor for which to judge the scholarly work of faculty. In fact, Gary Lucas at Texas A&M was recently asked a similar question : Texas A&M University assesses its colleges and departments based partly on scholarly impact and using quantitative metrics. The law school’s dean has assigned me the task of identifying scholarly impact metrics for use in assessing the performance of our law faculty collectively and individually. This essay discusses the major issues that arise in measuring the impact of legal scholarship. It also explains important scholarly impact metrics, including the Leiter score and Google Scholar h-index, and the major sources of information regarding scholarly impact, including Google Scholar, Westlaw, Hein Online, SSRN, and bepress. Ultimately, Lucas proposes ranking scholarship by Google Scholar citation count to p...

After starting a new position, it's always a good idea to evaluate the programming at your new institution and possibly bring experiences and programming initiatives along from your previous institution. At my last institution, I was a reference librarian, and I also taught a full-length course on scholarly writing. When I arrived at my new institution, I noticed a hole in the curriculum when it came to instructing the students on best practices for scholarly writing.  Because many of our students take part in seminar courses or the journal write-on competitions each year, it seemed natural to start a scholarly writing initiative at my new institution.  Starting Fall 2016, two new scholarly writing programs were introduced by the law library. The first was a Scribes Student Legal Writing Society group. As the Executive Director of Scribes, I was tasked with starting local chapters of this group at the various law schools. The first year would be a pilot year wit...

When I teach students about researching for scholarly articles, I mention Congressional Research Services Reports as a gold mine of information. However, my go-to source,  OpenCRS , is no longer active and is only available via archive. But a new organization has stepped in to fill the vast hole left by OpenCRS:  EveryCRSReport.com is now the go-to source for CRS Reports. About EveryCRSReport : CRS is Congress’ think tank, and its reports are relied upon by academics, businesses, judges, policy advocates, students, librarians, journalists, and policymakers for accurate and timely analysis of important policy issues. The reports are not classified and do not contain individualized advice to any specific member of Congress. (More: What is a CRS report?) Until today, CRS reports were generally available only to the well-connected. Now, in partnership with a Republican and Democratic member of Congress, we are making these reports available to everyone for free online. ...

In what many may consider a smart move, The Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice has said goodbye to The Bluebook . The BGLJ outlined three main reasons for its decision: First, the Bluebook presents an enormous and unnecessary barrier to publication in law journals for scholars from other disciplines, young scholars, legal practitioners, and others without access to students and clerks to Bluebook their work . The 20th Edition of the Bluebook is 560 pages long, a Russian doll of rules within rules. It strictly regulates when to use small-caps, when to italicize commas, and how to abbreviate the proper names of over 1000 law journals. Conforming citations to the Bluebook is an immense undertaking, even for attorneys who have presumably been trained to use it. For the non-attorney, reading the hundreds of pages of legal rules and then applying them is daunting. To the extent that the Bluebook citation style privileges the publication of work created by authors of a particul...

As I prepare to lead a Scribes Student Legal Writing Society discussion on "good legal writing," I am reminded of my post yesterday on using checklists to teach legal research and writing . A wonderful article by Professor Mark Osbeck called What is "Good Legal Writing" and Why Does it Matter? underscores the importance of going beyond checklists. As Osbeck mentions: Legal writing that is clear, concise, and engaging is good writing. Yet there is something about the very best examples of legal writing that goes beyond these three fundamental qualities.  Writers do not become proficient at their craft by memorizing a lot of picayune rules, or by applying checklists to their writing. They become proficient by reading the works of good writers and by practicing their own writing.  He goes on to recommend a pedagogical structure that highlights the foundations of good legal writing: clarity, conciseness, and engagement. Then using things like checklists and r...

In my legal research & writing course, my students are predictably concerned with writing a specific memo and brief to earn a good grade in my course. Of course they are. But I am more concerned with teaching them the fundamentals of legal research & writing so that they can employ the processes no matter what legal issue they face.  To that end, I use acronyms and checklists to make it easier to remember. For example, when teaching legal research, I discuss a 4-step legal research process : Preliminary Analysis - reviewing client interview, noting jurisdiction, parties, legal issues, defenses, etc... to use effective keywords in secondary sources to find an overview of the law with citations.  Search for Codified Law - looking for constitutions, statutes, court rules, and regulations on point.  Search for Binding Precedent - finding case law from the jurisdiction that the court must follow.  Search for Persuasive Precedent - finding case ...

The Elsevier takeover of SSRN is getting interesting. Recently we heard that Elsevier made a positive change when it adopted full-text searching on SSRN . But it appears there have also been some negative copyright changes. One author's recent experience highlights the negative: It appears that the corporate takeover of SSRN is already having a real impact. When I posted a final PDF of an article for which not only do my co-author and I retain the copyright, but for which the contract also includes _explicit_ permission to post on SSRN, I received the typical happy “SSRN Revision Email” saying all was well.  Only when I went to take a look, I found there was no longer any PDF to download at all—merely the abstract.  So, download counts are gone, and no article.  Not the former working version nor the final version.  And then in the revision comments, I found this: It appears that you do not retain copyright to the paper, and the PDF has been removed from publ...

The NYTimes announced that it will join the Associated Press this week to change their style rule to lowercase the word "internet." As noted, "while most publications capitalized the word when it first came into widespread use, the lowercase form has become steadily more common in recent years." Changes like these provide insight into how style and usage can change over time: More broadly, modern usage tends to favor less capitalization — along with fewer hyphens and less punctuation in general. Capitalizing words when it isn’t strictly necessary can seem archaic to contemporary readers. The Times used to capitalize “Federal” in phrases like “a Federal judge,” and even “Government” when referring to the national government. Now both of those uses would be lowercase under our rules. Click the link to purchase the full NYTimes style & usage manual.

According to Inc. , the average US employee spends about a quarter of the work week combing through the hundreds of emails we all send and receive every day. That sounds about right. As we send and receive these hundreds of emails, we might get into bad habits that could cost us professionally. For a reminder on email etiquette, see the following list of 15 email etiquette best practices. 1. Include a clear, direct subject line. 2. Use a professional email address. 3. Think twice before hitting 'reply all.' 4. Include a signature block. 5. Use professional salutations. 6. Use exclamation points sparingly. 7. Be cautious with humor. 8. Know that people from different cultures speak and write differently. 9. Reply to your emails--even if the email wasn't intended for you. 10. Proofread every message. 11. Add the email address last. 12. Double-check that you've selected the correct recipient. 13. Keep your fonts classic. 14. Keep tabs on your tone. 1...

Check out my new RIPS Law Librarian Blog post on open access initiatives in legal scholarly publishing.

My library is hosting some amazing events for National Library Week . Trivia night with beer and pizza was a huge hit. Thanks to Westlaw, Cali, Lexis, & West Academic for sponsoring and bringing our law school community together! We hosted a law school scholarship reception today to honor faculty and student scholarship. The best event, though, may be the RBG Coloring Contest ! And I am honored that Lexis chose to feature me as a "prominent law librarian" during National Library Week. Happy National Library Week! (Law) Libraries Transform!

During legal research & writing for international LL.M. students, I discuss the role of logos, pathos, and ethos as modes of persuasion for brief writing. Pathos (plural: pathe) is an appeal to the audience’s emotions, and the terms sympathy, pathetic, and empathy are derived from it. During the course, I give various examples of choosing specific words and phrases to garner sympathy or empathy from the reader if it is warranted. Until recently, the efficacy of using pathos has been mostly based on anecdotal evidence that it will make a judge feel a certain way about a defendant or victim helping the attorney advocate for his or her client. In December 2015, a new paper was released that looks at the use of emotional language in briefs before SCOTUS and analyzes the briefs and the ultimate outcome of the case. From the abstract: The legal brief is a primary vehicle by which lawyers seek to persuade appellate judges. Despite wide acceptance that briefs are important,...

A new article was just released that is the culmination of a three-year ethnographic study of attorneys in the workplace called  Lawyers at Work: A Study of the Reading, Writing, and Communication Practices of Legal Professionals by Ann Sinsheimer and David J. Herring. From the abstract: This paper reports the results of a three-year ethnographic study of attorneys in the workplace. The authors applied ethnographic methods to identify how junior associates in law firm settings engaged in reading and writing tasks in their daily practice. The authors were able to identify the types of texts junior associates encountered in the workplace and to isolate the strategies these attorneys used to read and compose texts.  The findings suggest that lawyering is fundamentally about reading. The attorneys observed for this study read constantly, encountering a large variety of texts and engaging in many styles of reading, including close reading and also reading broadly, skimming and...

Barbara Fister over at Library Babel Fish made some interesting observations about threshold concepts and information literacy after reading a book called Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies.  Academic librarians have been kicking around the idea of threshold concepts ever since a revision of the familiar information literacy standards proposed that we could rethink our approach to instruction in the art and craft of inquiry. The new Framework proposes several big ideas that could inform the learning that happens in our libraries.  They describe the kind of learning we design our libraries to nurture, but which is largely dependent on faculty in the disciplines who create the learning situations that will most profoundly influence whether our students cross these thresholds or not.  This is in line with librarians bridging the knowledge in action gap.   To determine how librarians might use threshold concepts Fister read the b...