LWI 2010 presentation

LWI 2010 Conference
Marco Island, Florida

A New and Urgent Role
for the Legal Writing
Professorate:
The Impact of Technology on the Law
and the Legal Profession

Program

• David Thomson (Denver) Moderator
• Ian Gallacher (Syracuse) Search
• Ellie Margolis (Temple) Practice
• Kristen Murray (Temple) Classroom
• Your Questions

David Thomson
LP Professor and Director
Lawyering Process Program
University of Denver

Can we stop focusing
on the small stuff?
Word vs. WordPerfect
Laptops or no
PowerPoint is/or is not evil

Wrote a book!
I wanted to get us off the
small stuff, so I wrote a book.

Thesis of Law School 2.0
• Legal Education has not changed (enough)
for 100 years. There has to be a reason.
• The Cost/Change Conundrum:
• We know what needs to change, it just
costs too much
• Technology is ﬁnally maturing - it can help
• The Practice of law is using tech in new ways
• For our students, technology is like Air

Ian Gallacher
Associate Professor of Law
Syracuse University Law School
Director, Legal Communication
and Research

Technology is anything that was
invented after you were born.
Allen Kay

Technology is stuff that doesn’t work yet.
Bran Ferren

Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born
is just normal;

Anything that gets invented between then and before you
turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any
luck you can make a career out of it;

Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against
the natural order of things and the beginning of the end
of civilization as we know it until it’s been around for
about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright
really.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors
and mobile phones to work out how old you are.

Douglas Adams

Predicting the future is a mug’s game.
Douglas Adams

The best way to predict the future
is to invent it.
Allen Kay

Ellie Margolis
Legal Research and Writing
Temple University
Beasley School of Law

1998 2008 Total Cases

1st 1 16 140
3d 2 33 236
5th 4 10 106
7th 0 84 392
9th 2 85 604
S. Ct. 1 29 166

Legal Authority Non-Legal

Majority 20 83

Concurrence 4 69

Dissent 19 111

Other 51

FROM GOOGLE SCHOLAR:
*319 JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted
the motion of petitioner Celotex Corporation for summary judgment
against respondent Catrett because the latter was unable to produce
evidence in support of her allegation in her wrongful-death complaint
that the decedent had been exposed to petitioner's asbestos
products. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit reversed, however, holding that petitioner's failure to
support its motion with evidence tending to negate such exposure
precluded the entry of summary judgment in its favor. Catrett v.
Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 244 U. S. App. D. C. 160, 756 F. 2d 181
(1985). This view conﬂicted with that of the Third Circuit in In re
Japanese Electronic Products, 723 F. 2d 238(1983), rev'd on
other grounds sub nom. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v.
Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U. S. 574 (1986).[1] We granted certiorari
to resolve the conﬂict, 474 U. S. 944 (1985), and now reverse the
decision of the District of Columbia Circuit.

FROM WESTLAW

*319 Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted
the motion of petitioner Celotex Corporation for summary judgment
against respondent Catrett because the latter was unable to produce
evidence in support of her allegation in her wrongful-death complaint
that the decedent had been exposed to petitioner’s asbestos products.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit reversed, however, holding that petitioner’s failure to support its
motion with evidence tending to negate such exposure precluded the
entry of summary judgment in its favor. Catrett v. Johns-Manville
Sales Corp., 244 U.S.App.D.C. 160, 756 F.2d 181 (1985). This view
conﬂicted with that of the Third Circuit in In re Japanese **2551
Electronic Products, 723 F.2d 238 (1983), rev’d on other grounds
sub nom. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio
Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).1 We
granted certiorari to resolve the conﬂict, 474 U.S. 944, 106 S.Ct. 342,
88 L.Ed.2d 285 (1985), and now reverse the decision of the District of
Columbia Circuit.

STATISTICAL REPORT FROM DOJ
CITED BY SUPREME COURT

Our review determined that the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) detained 762 aliens as a result
of the PENTTBOM investigation. Of these 762 aliens, 24
were in INS custody on immigration violations prior to the
September 11 attacks. The remaining 738 aliens were
arrested between September 11, 2001, and August 6, 2002,
as a direct result of the FBI’s PENTTBOM investigation. All
762 detainees were placed on what became known as an
“INS Custody List” because of the FBI’s assessment that they
may have had a connection to the September 11 attacks or
terrorism in general, or because the FBI was unable, at least
initially, to determine whether they were connected to
terrorism.

Where do we go from
here?

Kristen Murray
Legal Research and Writing
Temple University
Beasley School of Law

Survey Participants

• Second-semester 1Ls at Temple University,
Beasley School of Law and George Washington
University Law School
• 177 respondents
• 175 own a laptop

Did you bring your laptop to class during
your undergraduate studies?

• Sample responses:
– “everyone else does”
– “a 2L told me to do it” Yes
No
– Need to organize,
search notes
– Need to access other,
class-related material
online during class

City of Ontario v.
Quon, No. 08-1332
Maybe--maybe everyone else knows this,
but what is the difference between a pager
and e-mail? 29:18-20
What happens, just out of curiosity, [if he
is] on the pager and sending a message and
they’re trying to reach him for, you know, a
SWAT team crisis? [Does the one] kind of
trump the other, or do they get a busy
signal? 44:1-5

A New and Urgent Role
for the Legal Writing
Professorate:
The Impact of Technology on the Law
and the Legal Profession

http://www.slideshare.net/dicthomson

LWI 2010 presentation

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