Law School

[skylark]

Hmm... are these memoranda or were these writings filed with the court?

If memoranda... this is a bad situation. Sorry. I'd spiff something up for a class, I guess, and hope for the best, maybe?

If these were filed with the court (and hence, public record), I think it is the kind of funny coincidence that I'd point out up front in your writing sample cover sheet that explains the context of the document (I'm assuming students in your area do these cover sheets, although not all students from my school included one). I'd say something like: "While at the time I wrote this I did not contemplate the possibility of using it to seek employment from the opposing side, I think that this is a representative sample of my work and your firm's familiarity with the case's context makes this sample that much more meaningful as an indicator of my abilities."

Good luck to you!

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally Posted by unspokenone25

It's better than having to underline cites. A partner at my firm won't allow associates to use italics in cites...EVER.

Oh, that's bizarre. My boyfriend uses this made up system of citation that I can't believe nobody has called him out for yet. If he is referring to a case, he'll write:

The court held in Roe that abortion should be legal.

but if he's citing to the case, he'll put:

As the Court held, the Constitution has "penumbras, formed by emanations." Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973).

I have no idea where he got this from. I've worked with attorneys from his school and they do it too. I think one of their legal writing professors was high.

Originally Posted by skylark

Hmm... are these memoranda or were these writings filed with the court?

If memoranda... this is a bad situation. Sorry. I'd spiff something up for a class, I guess, and hope for the best, maybe?

If these were filed with the court (and hence, public record), I think it is the kind of funny coincidence that I'd point out up front in your writing sample cover sheet that explains the context of the document (I'm assuming students in your area do these cover sheets, although not all students from my school included one). I'd say something like: "While at the time I wrote this I did not contemplate the possibility of using it to seek employment from the opposing side, I think that this is a representative sample of my work and your firm's familiarity with the case's context makes this sample that much more meaningful as an indicator of my abilities."

Good luck to you!

They were documents filed with the court - it's a defense firm and I worked for the prosecutor this summer. They were filed under my supervising attorney's name, but I wrote them all - there's a few appeals that we won and a bunch of motions that we won. I actually really like the statement you have and think I'll do something like that. I usually do a really short cover sheet that just says "This document was prepared as a response to a motion to suppress evidence in a drunk-driving case" but this seems like a situation where a longer explanation would be good!

Thanks for the advice!

[skylark]

Originally Posted by unspokenone25

It's better than having to underline cites. A partner at my firm won't allow associates to use italics in cites...EVER.

How retro. Whenever I see documents filed that adhere to 1970s format standards I kind of roll my eyes.

As far as the whole regional citation quirk conversation above goes, though, I have to say it happens where I am, too. There are a few things like the abbreviation for our court of appeals that for whatever reason gets abbreviated in a really screwy non-bluebook way. But if you do it bluebook, it just looks weird and out of place in the region -- like you're writing the document from out of state. Who knows... maybe they do it just to screw with out-of-staters.

[SigmaChiCard]

Not sure if I mentioned it, but I passed the KY bar exam this past July.

I take the patent bar on Thursday.

For anyone who has had to study for the regular bar.....that is a cakewalk compared to this thing! Anyone else doing patent law here?



also, if anyone ever wants my old outlines, you're more than welcome to them.....i tended to have very minimalist outlines, but they tend to have the bulk of the info in them & are very efficient if you can follow them. My friends sometimes thought they were hieroglyphics. For the Bar exam, my longest outlines were 4 pages for Wills, Trusts & Estates & 4.5 pages for real property. Criminal Law was 1.

Currently I've gotten most of the patent law down into 7 pages.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by GeekyPenguin

Oh, that's bizarre. My boyfriend uses this made up system of citation that I can't believe nobody has called him out for yet. If he is referring to a case, he'll write:

The court held in Roe that abortion should be legal.

but if he's citing to the case, he'll put:

As the Court held, the Constitution has "penumbras, formed by emanations." Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973).

Heh. I see lawyers with some regularity who underline and italicize:

"As the Court held, the Constitution has "penumbras, formed by emanations." Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973)."

It drives me nuts. The whole thing is rather simple. Case names should always be italicized. Underlining is a typewriter convention to indicate text that would be italicized if possible. Italicizing is possible with a word processor, hence underlining is not needed as a substitute.

Of course, then there are the people who, for emphasis, will bold, italicize and underline. Because it's that important! LOL -- people who work with me know that I will never sign my name to a brief with any bolded text in it.

[Kevin]

The bluebook says that both underlining and italics are acceptable.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Kevin

The bluebook says that both underlining and italics are acceptable.

Sure, it does, because they're the same thing. It also notes that "[t]raditionally, underscoring was simply a way of indicating to the printer text that should be italicized." (18th Ed. at 4) Underscoring (underlining) is a substitute for italics. Since wordprocessers can typeset, underlining is not needed as a substitute anymore.

As an aside, I have yet to practice in a court that sticks to Bluebook rules regarding citations.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Heh. I see lawyers with some regularity who underline and italicize:

"As the Court held, the Constitution has "penumbras, formed by emanations." Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973)."

It drives me nuts. The whole thing is rather simple. Case names should always be italicized. Underlining is a typewriter convention to indicate text that would be italicized if possible. Italicizing is possible with a word processor, hence underlining is not needed as a substitute.

Of course, then there are the people who, for emphasis, will bold, italicize and underline. Because it's that important! LOL -- people who work with me know that I will never sign my name to a brief with any bolded text in it.

In one of the cases Mr. GP is doing right now, the state has traffic stop and custodial interrogation bolded every time they quote. I wonder if they copied and pasted from Westlaw.

[LegallyBrunette]

Originally Posted by skylark

How retro. Whenever I see documents filed that adhere to 1970s format standards I kind of roll my eyes.

As far as the whole regional citation quirk conversation above goes, though, I have to say it happens where I am, too. There are a few things like the abbreviation for our court of appeals that for whatever reason gets abbreviated in a really screwy non-bluebook way. But if you do it bluebook, it just looks weird and out of place in the region -- like you're writing the document from out of state. Who knows... maybe they do it just to screw with out-of-staters.

I never realized underlining was considered outdated. That's how I was taught in Legal Writing and that's what's expected at my firm. Then again, it doesn't shock me that Pittsburgh is behind the times on something.

[kddani]

Originally Posted by LegallyBrunette

I never realized underlining was considered outdated. That's how I was taught in Legal Writing and that's what's expected at my firm. Then again, it doesn't shock me that Pittsburgh is behind the times on something.

Ditto for me, and I'm also at a Pittsburgh firm IMO, underlining is easier to read, so I personally prefer it, lol.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by kddani

Ditto for me, and I'm also at a Pittsburgh firm IMO, underlining is easier to read, so I personally prefer it, lol.

Funny how people's perceptions can differ isn't it? I think underlining is harder to read (as in disrupts the flow of reading). Ah well -- tomato, tomahto.

FWIW, I was taught in Legal Research and Writing to use italics if possible (and at the time, it usually wasn't unless you were having a printer was print your brief), otherwise underline. This was in the 1980s. When I clerked, we always underlined in opinions -- when the opinions were printed in the reports, of course, the underlining had been transformed to italics.

[skylark]

Originally Posted by GeekyPenguin

In one of the cases Mr. GP is doing right now, the state has traffic stop and custodial interrogation bolded every time they quote. I wonder if they copied and pasted from Westlaw.

My guess is yep. I've actually seen briefs filed that are in the Verdana font with citations italicized, underlined (hyperlinked) and in gray (I'm assuming they'd be blue with color prints) AND the *898 *272 page markers. Talk about lazy....

[skylark]

To all those out there that care about this sort of thing: I just read something on a favorite law-blog that the "new Screech" from the Saved by the Bell: the New Class series is going to be one of Justice O'Connor's new clerks. Totally random, but who would have guessed that a saturday morning kids show would produce such a potentially influential legal figure.

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2008/02/s...at_12.php#more

[deadbear80]

Originally Posted by skylark

To all those out there that care about this sort of thing: I just read something on a favorite law-blog that the "new Screech" from the Saved by the Bell: the New Class series is going to be one of Justice Breyer's new clerks. Totally random, but who would have guessed that a saturday morning kids show would produce such a potentially influential legal figure.

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2008/02/s...at_12.php#more

He's actually working for O'Connor based on the site you sent us too.

I mean, I know she's retired so she still gets a clerk--but I wouldn't want to work for a Justice whose opinions don't get published anymore.

Anyone else surprised that 90some% of the newly hired clerks are from the Harvard/Yale club?

We had 3 professors (and the Dean) at my law school who were all Supreme Court Clerks--2 went to Harvard (both clerked for Ginsburg), 1 went to UVA (He clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist), and the Dean went to Michigan (he clerked for O'Connor).

They are damn hard jobs to get though.

[skylark]

How weird. You know sometimes when you read something and you swear it said something it didn't? Yeah.

Sorry everyone -- Justice O'Connor is the winner of the Screech-clerk.

Still funny.