Oft-Overlooked Legal Writing Genres III
posted by Miriam Cherry
After considering statutory poetry, the law review cover letter, and the nastygram, consider two more muted, oft-overlooked genres of academic legal writing:
Course Descriptions. Earlier this semester I was discussing the “standard form” for course descriptions. Part of this is clarity: how many hours is the class, what subjects does it cover, and what graduation or certificate requirements does it fulfill? The standard, I think, is to err on the side of “timeless” writing, since who-all knows when course catalogue descriptions will be revisited. Of course, the conflicting impulse here is to make the course description really “whiz bang,” especially if the course has been approved on a provisional basis and you really want to attract students. Not to mention that the space limitations and the need to be inclusive and representative of what you may do in the class (often before you’ve ever taught it) make this a difficult blurb to write.
The External Review Letter. I received over twenty of them related to the promotion to full professor (now, after the faculty vote, happily exhaling… 
. Ostensibly, the goal of these letters is to evaluate the candidate’s work fairly and to comment on its contribution to the field, creativity, and analytical ability. Most letters begin with a summary of the article – what does it cover, what is the argument – set out the positives, add a few small “quibbles” here and there, and then return to the positives. At least, (luckily), that was my overall experience.
Of course, there is always that wild card that you hear about but hopefully do not have to experience personally, that is the reviewer who decides that the process is not really about the candidate, or even a negative yet constructive evaluation, but rather is to show that s/he is smarter than everyone (not just the tenure candidate, or the candidate’s committee) but, literally, everyone. In the world. (Our young, mmm-mmm, they are so tasty…).
November 23, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Posted in: Law School
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