A Park For Everyone: The National Park Service in Urban America

This article examines the National Park Service\u27s past and future presence in urban America. Scholars, conservationists, and park administrators agree that urban park spaces and programming must be a focus of the National Park Service in its second century. This article explains the motivations behind the National Park Service\u27s first urban parks and describes the National Park Service\u27s recent emphasis on urban areas. From designations such as Pullman Park in Chicago, to initiatives like the Urban Agenda, the National Park Service is poised to engage urban America and create a new generation of park visitors

They Know Their Colors: Using Color-Coded Comments to Facilitate Revisions

Many 1L students do not understand that written comments have different purposes and varying degrees of importance. In addition, students often do not fully appreciate the importance of editing in stages. Color-coding comments is one way to help students both distinguish between different comments and incorporate comments during the revision process. Color-coded comments are particularly useful early in the semester when students are revising drafts. Color-coded comments allow students to identify the “type” of comment (e.g. organizational vs. grammatical) before reading the substance of the comment, allowing for better comprehension of the comment. In addition, color coded comments can help students integrate comments in a systematic manner (e.g. addressing blue comments before yellow comments). In this article, I explain how to color-code comments using Adobe Reader and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of color-coded comments

It\u27s Not All Statistics: Demystifying Empirical Research

Although Oliver Wendell Holmes was touting the merits of empirical research over one hundred years ago, only recently have legal academics created a journal and conference dedicated to empirical legal studies. Interestingly, topics of interest to legal writing professors have been a source for empirical research well before the emergence these specialized journals and conferences. For example, empirical research comparing the use of legal prose to plain English in appellate briefs was taking place over 25 years ago. In 1996, the second volume of The Journal of Legal Writing Institute included an empirical study evaluating which professors’ comments students found the most useful. More recently, the use of laptops in the classroom has become a topic for empirical research by law professors. Like many legal writing professors, I have found these and other articles with empirical research useful to both my understanding of the doctrine of legal writing and to my teaching of this subject. In engaging in my own empirical research, however, I have discovered that empirical research encompasses more than the statistics espoused by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The legal writing professor of the future should understand that empirical research can be done in a variety of ways and is a viable area for legal scholarship

An Introduction to the National Park Service Symposium

This symposium features four different perspectives on the National Park Service Centennial, and includes the voice of Donald J. Hellman, an attorney who has spent much of his career working for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., Jamison E. Colburn, an environmental law and policy scholar at Penn State Law School and former EPA attorney, Julie Joly Lurman, a natural resources law and public lands expert, and Liz Putnam, a youth and conservation advocate

From Awkward Law Student to Articulate Attorney: Teaching the Oral Research Report

Busy attorneys want results quickly and in a clear and organized manner. Many prefer associates to report their research results orally in a face-to-face conversation rather than a written memo. In the first year of law school, however, there are not many opportunities for students to practice having conversations about the law in a thoughtful and professional manner. While the Socratic dialogue common in most first year courses challenges students to think on their feet, this method does not teach students how to describe their research path, explain their analysis of a client’s legal issue, or make a recommendation on a course of action using the spoken word. For this reason, I have incorporated an exercise into my Legal Research and Writing course requiring students to orally present their research results and assessment of a client’s legal issue. In this article, I explain why I include an oral research report exercise in my Legal Research and Writing class, what this exercise entails, and how legal writing professors are uniquely situated for teaching the oral research reporting skill

Judicial Campaign Financing: An Ever Present Threat to Judicial Independence

The different processes by which state judges are selected is an increasingly popular topic for discussion amongst legal scholars and practitioners. While many law review articles and discussions advocate for one method of judicial selection over the other, this article addresses one specific and significant concern with the elective method: campaign financing.2 As this article explains, campaign financing can impair judicial independence and inhibit fair and impartial decisions. Fortunately, the appointive system is insulated from the pressures and problems associated with campaign financing, a benefit which is all the more evident today when everyone, including judges, face difficult economic times. More importantly, however, because an appointive system does not involve campaign financing, judicial independence is best preserved in states like Maine where state judges are appointed, rather than elected

The Farmer In Chief: Obama\u27s Local Food Legacy

As criticism over America’s food policy has grown, many scholars have offered suggestions for reform. Complementing this body of scholarship, The Farmer In Chief identifies and assesses recent changes to federal laws and policies as they affect ‘local food’ and describes local farmers’ awareness of and reaction to these changes. These changes and the farmers’ responses show greater recognition of local food by the President and federal government in three ways: increased inclusion of local food in legislation and policy discussions; increased awareness of the benefits of local food production and consumption; and increased consumer access to local food. But the farmers’ responses also highlight areas where improvements can be made. Specifically, farmers need to be better informed about funding opportunities and funding opportunities need to be available to a greater number of farmers

A Mild Winter: The Status of Environmental Preliminary Injunctions

Since the enactment of environmental legislation in the 1970s, the preliminary injunction standard articulated by the Supreme Court for environmental claims has evolved from general principles to enumerated factors. In Winter v. Natural Resource Defense Council, Inc., the Court’s most recent refinement, the Court endorsed but failed to explain the application of a common four-factor test when it held that the alleged injury to marine mammals was outweighed by the public interest of a well-trained and prepared Navy. While a number of commentators have speculated about Winter’s impact on future environmental preliminary injunctions, this article seeks to more precisely determine Winter’s effect. It does so by providing a quantitative and qualitative analysis of data collected from federal district and circuit courts three years before and three years after Winter. In Part I, the Article begins by tracing the evolution of the environmental preliminary injunction standard from general principles to the precise four-factor preliminary injunction standard articulated in Winter. Part II describes the Winter decision and highlights concerns from academics about the Winter decision and its application by trial courts. Part III explains the study designed to evaluate changes in the environmental preliminary injunction standard in light of Winter’s pronouncement of a four-factor standard and presents the qualitative and quantitative results of this study. Part IV then provides an assessment of these results. Part V concludes