Past, Present, and Future of Appellate Briefs — AALS Meeting — New Orleans, LA

The AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research invites submissions on the topic of The Past, Present, and Future of Appellate Briefs for a program at the AALS annual meeting Jan. 4-7. 2013. The submission deadline is Aug. 15, 2012.

The AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research is pleased to announce that one of the programs that it will sponsor during the AALS 2013 Annual Meeting in New Orleans is on the topic of The Past, Present, and Future of Appellate Briefs.

Listed below are the committed moderator and speakers. The Section is now seeking paper submissions to fill the speaker slot that will address Trends in Briefing. For this topic, the Section is looking for papers that will focus on the present status of appellate briefs by addressing topics like how briefs have changed in recent years, what innovative practices today’s advocates deploy, and what orthodoxies law students are taught that may not reflect the way appeals are actually litigated in practice. These are not the only topics that may be addressed, however; the Section encourages submission of papers on topics broadly associated with the present status of appellate briefs.

  1. Moderator: Noah Messing, Lecturer in the Practice of Law and Legal Writing, Yale Law School
  2. The Origins of Appellate Briefs in the American Court System: R. Kirkland Cozine, Counsel, Lazard Middle Markets LLC
  3. Revisiting the Brandeis Brief: Linda Edwards, E.L. Cord Foundation Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law
  4. Trends in Briefing
  5. Tensions between What the Legal Writing Community Teaches and What Top Lawyers Actually Do: Noah Messing, Lecturer in the Practice of Law and Legal Writing, Yale Law School
  6. The Future of Appellate Briefs: Lucille Jewel, Associate Professor, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School

Submissions should be of scholarship relating to the topic of Trends in Briefing.

There is a maximum 25,000 word limit (inclusive of footnotes) for the submission, although the section encourages shorter, essay length submissions as well. Each professor may submit only one paper for consideration.

The Section will review the paper anonymously. A cover letter with the author’s name and contact information should accompany the paper. The paper itself, including title page and footnotes, must not contain any references that identify the author or the author’s school. The submitting author is responsible for taking any steps necessary to redact self-identifying text or footnotes. Papers may be accepted for publication but must not be published prior to the annual meeting.

To be considered, papers must be submitted electronically to Professor Samantha Moppett, Suffolk University Law School, smoppett@suffolk.edu. The deadline for submission is Wednesday, August 15, 2012. The author of the selected paper will be notified by October 1, 2012. The Call for Paper participant will be responsible for paying his or her own annual meeting registration fee and travel expenses.

Full-time faculty members of AALS member law schools are eligible to submit papers. Foreign, visiting (and not full time at a member law school faculty), and adjunct faculty members, graduate students, and fellows are not eligible to submit. Faculty at fee-paid non-member schools are also ineligible.

Papers will be selected after review by an ad hoc committee composed of Section Executive Committee members and Section Program Committee members.

Any inquiries about the Call for Papers should be submitted to: Professor Samantha Moppett, Suffolk University Law School, smoppett@suffolk.edu, or 617.573.8135, or Kirsten Davis, kkdavis@law.stetson.edu.

The Program Committee looks forward to receiving your papers.

Kirsten Davis, Stetson (co-chair)
Samantha Moppett, Suffolk (co-chair)
Mary Algero, Loyola New Orleans
Anna Hemingway, Widener
Ellie Margolis, Temple
Joseph Mastrosimone, Washburn
Kathryn Mercer, Case Western
Noah Messing, Yale
Kristen Tiscione, Georgetown

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