Duty to Rescue? Exploring Legal Analysis Through the Lens of Photojournalists’ Storytelling Dilemmas

In depicting scenes of tragedy, what happens when photojournalists become the story? Do photojournalists have a duty to rescue those they photograph? Should they? This article will use a series of iconic images – and the stories of the photojournalists behind the camera – to illustrate how exploring these questions can be a provocative vehicle through which to engage new law students in legal writing and analysis. The article focuses on an exercise that centers around a fictional “Duty to Rescue” statute modeled after European statutes of the same kind. The exercise is anchored by four images – three still photographs and one image that is part of a short documentary film – of people in tragic and near-death situations. The article explores ways to use the stories behind these images to engage law students in the question of whether the photojournalists who took the images had violated the fictional Duty to Rescue statute, and concludes with a discussion of ideas on how the basic exercise can be modified and/or expanded, including but not limited to raising issues of morality-based lawmaking, ethics, fairness, and differences in law across cultures

Making Workshops Work (for Everyone): Creating and Capturing a Student-Driven Writing Workshop Series

It\u27s not uncommon for new law students to arrive at law school anxious for support on their legal writing assignments and looking for strategies to improve their time management and exam preparation skills. At the same time, upper-level law students are often eager for opportunities to develop their public speaking, presentation development, and leadership skills. This article presents an overview of the 2009-10 Fall Writing Workshop Series, sponsored by the GW Law Writing Center, which successfully met both sets of goals. The article provides readers with concrete ideas for implementing a similar program at their law schools, and includes ideas for expanding and refining the program in future years

Making Workshops Work (for Everyone): Creating and Capturing a Student-Driven Writing Workshop Series

It\u27s not uncommon for new law students to arrive at law school anxious for support on their legal writing assignments and looking for strategies to improve their time management and exam preparation skills. At the same time, upper-level law students are often eager for opportunities to develop their public speaking, presentation development, and leadership skills. This article presents an overview of the 2009-10 Fall Writing Workshop Series, sponsored by the GW Law Writing Center, which successfully met both sets of goals. The article provides readers with concrete ideas for implementing a similar program at their law schools, and includes ideas for expanding and refining the program in future years

The World Is Not Flat: Conference Planning and Presentation as Part of a Multidimensional Understanding of Scholarship

Scholarship. For many academics, the word is filled with a combination of excitement, anticipation, obligation, and dread. Academics are expected to reliably produce scholarship, much like sculptors are expected to produce art, baristas cappuccinos, and stockbrokers profits. While “scholarship” has perhaps traditionally been viewed as strictly words on a page, some scholars view it to be a multidimensional enterprise, something that encompasses the many aspects of the life of a scholar. The idea of scholarship as comprising more than just the generation of a tangible written product is taken up in Maksymilian Del Mar’s Living Legal Scholarship, which asserts “five responsibilities of legal scholarship: the responsibility of reading, writing, teaching, collegiality, and engagement.” Del Mar emphasizes that “[t]he five responsibilities must be understood holistically: they work together to provide a picture of the ethical life of a legal scholar.” This article tells the story of how the authors’ journey has led them to the belief that planning and presenting at legal writing conferences is a powerful way to engage in many (and at times perhaps all?) of Del Mar’s “five responsibilities of legal scholarship.” The article concludes with practical guidance based on the authors’ experiences on how seizing the opportunity to do your own conference planning and hosting can benefit you, your school, and the broader legal writing community

Duty to Rescue? Exploring Legal Analysis Through the Lens of Photojournalists’ Storytelling Dilemmas

In depicting scenes of tragedy, what happens when photojournalists become the story? Do photojournalists have a duty to rescue those they photograph? Should they? This article will use a series of iconic images – and the stories of the photojournalists behind the camera – to illustrate how exploring these questions can be a provocative vehicle through which to engage new law students in legal writing and analysis. The article focuses on an exercise that centers around a fictional “Duty to Rescue” statute modeled after European statutes of the same kind. The exercise is anchored by four images – three still photographs and one image that is part of a short documentary film – of people in tragic and near-death situations. The article explores ways to use the stories behind these images to engage law students in the question of whether the photojournalists who took the images had violated the fictional Duty to Rescue statute, and concludes with a discussion of ideas on how the basic exercise can be modified and/or expanded, including but not limited to raising issues of morality-based lawmaking, ethics, fairness, and differences in law across cultures

The World Is Not Flat: Conference Planning and Presentation as Part of a Multidimensional Understanding of Scholarship

Scholarship. For many academics, the word is filled with a combination of excitement, anticipation, obligation, and dread. Academics are expected to reliably produce scholarship, much like sculptors are expected to produce art, baristas cappuccinos, and stockbrokers profits. While “scholarship” has perhaps traditionally been viewed as strictly words on a page, some scholars view it to be a multidimensional enterprise, something that encompasses the many aspects of the life of a scholar. The idea of scholarship as comprising more than just the generation of a tangible written product is taken up in Maksymilian Del Mar’s Living Legal Scholarship, which asserts “five responsibilities of legal scholarship: the responsibility of reading, writing, teaching, collegiality, and engagement.” Del Mar emphasizes that “[t]he five responsibilities must be understood holistically: they work together to provide a picture of the ethical life of a legal scholar.” This article tells the story of how the authors’ journey has led them to the belief that planning and presenting at legal writing conferences is a powerful way to engage in many (and at times perhaps all?) of Del Mar’s “five responsibilities of legal scholarship.” The article concludes with practical guidance based on the authors’ experiences on how seizing the opportunity to do your own conference planning and hosting can benefit you, your school, and the broader legal writing community