Seminar in Legal Scholarship, L8822

Professor Dorf

Fall 2006, Tuesdays 4:10 – 6:00 PM

Syllabus and Course Information

Overview

This seminar will examine the production of legal scholarship for those who are or think they may at some later point be interested in a career as a legal academic. How do you select a topic? How much research is enough? How do you go from outline to rough draft to finished article? How do you get your paper published? And most importantly, what makes for good legal scholarship?

The seminar will consist primarily of three activities: (1) In some weeks, we will address, in a hands-on way, nuts and bolts questions, such as methodology, the use and citation of authority, and where, how and when to submit works for publication; (2) In some weeks, we will read and critique published articles and works in progress, typically presented by their authors; (3) And in the final five weeks of the seminar, students will present their own works in progress for critique.

During the course of the semester, each student will be responsible for a short “reaction” paper and a longer paper, which can qualify for major writing credit. Students who wish to write papers in areas outside of my expertise are welcome in the seminar, but they will be required to find another, more knowledgeable, faculty member to provide additional substantive feedback on their papers. (My expertise extends to civil procedure, constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, federal jurisdiction, and public law more generally.)

Assigned Readings

Purchase a copy of Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing (2d ed. 2005). I have assigned substantial parts of the book for various weeks in the seminar. I also encourage you to use the rest of the book as a guide in your research and writing. All other materials will be distributed electronically on the courseweb page for this seminar before the relevant sessions.

Week 1 Introduction: The Anatomy and Evolution of a Law Review Article

Michael C. Dorf, Fallback Law (draft)

Week 2 What Makes an Important Article? Part I: A New Paradigm

Guido Calabresi and A. Douglas Melamed, Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1089 (1972).

Ronald Dworkin, Hard Cases, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 1057 (1975).

Week 3 Choosing a Topic and Beyond

Read Volokh pp 9 – 52. Come to the seminar prepared to make a very short, very preliminary, oral presentation on two potential paper topics.

Week 4 Anatomy and Evolution of another Law Review Article

Guest Speaker with work in progress.

Week 5 What Makes an Important Article? Part II: Being Provocative

Elisabeth M. Landes and Richard A. Posner, The Economics of the Baby Shortage, 7 J. Legal Stud. 323 (1978).

Dan M. Kahan and Tracey L. Meares, Foreword: The Coming Crisis of Criminal Procedure, 86 Geo. L.J. 1153 (1998).

Week 6 Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship

Guest Speaker with work in progress.

Week 7 Research and Writing

Read Volokh pp 68—146 (but skip the exercises). No later than noon on Monday, October 16, email my assistant, Gabriel Soto (gsoto@law.columbia.edu) the proposed opening paragraph of your article. He will compile these into a single document that will be emailed to you to bring to class the next day.

Week 8 Publishing and Getting an Academic Job

Read Volokh pp 150—170 and “Almost Everything You Need to Know About Law School Teaching.”

Remaining Weeks Student Papers

No later than week 6, we will develop a schedule for each seminar participant to present a draft in progress and receive feedback from fellow seminarians. Discussion of each student paper will take approximately half an hour. Note that for personal reasons, the seminar will not meet on Tuesday, November 14. Instead, we will meet twice in one of the subsequent weeks.

Reaction Papers

You must write a very short (max 1,000 word) reaction paper to one of the assigned articles during the course of the semester. You can choose any of the articles from weeks 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. Your reaction paper should offer a fair-minded assessment of the article. What is its core claim? Does the article advance the claim persuasively? Where is the argument most vulnerable to criticism, and how could the author best respond to that criticism?

Final Papers

Your final papers are due at the end of exam period, but I freely grant extensions. Your grade on the final paper will be your grade for the seminar, except that good participation in the seminar and a good reaction paper can earn a half-grade bump.