Landskroner Foundation for Children 15th Annual Law Student Closing Argument Competition

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Open to 2nd and 3rd year law students from Ohio law schools who will give a 15 minute closing argument in a civil case for the plaintiff, a catastrophically injured child. Argument will be on damages only. Fact pattern, exhibits, and demonstrative evidence will be furnished.

National and local team of judges, including experienced trial lawyers with   over 20 years of experience, media personalities, judicial officials, and child advocates.

The top three students will receive cash scholarship awards of $750 for 1st place, $500 for second place and $200 for third place. All participants are invited to attend a reception to follow at the law offices of Landskroner · Grieco · Merriman, LLC located in Cleveland’s warehouse district.

Although all participants are invited to attend the entire evening of competition, it is only necessary to be present 30 minutes in advance of the pre-assigned time for argument.

Deadline for applications is October 14, 2013. Competition limited to 12 contestants ~ apply today!

To apply, please contact:
Landskroner · Grieco · Merriman, LLC @ (216) 522-9000. Ask for Anathea or email anathea@lgmlegal.com

Sponsored By: The Landskroner Foundation for Children and the Landskroner • Grieco • Merriman Law Firm

Proofreading

Being a skilled writer requires attention to detail. Proofreading is a necessary step in developing a final product. Below is a guest blog post by Professor Risa Lazaroff noting her five suggestions for proofreading.


It happens to the best of us. We proofread an email or a document before we send it or submit it, and sure enough, after we send it or submit it, we find a typo (or two). But it is too late. Even the most diligent among us likely will not catch every mistake because it is difficult to be a critical reader of our own work. We frequently do not see our own work objectively. But, because lawyers are professional writers, because our job is to help others avoid litigation and confusion rather than create it, and because we want to maintain the highest professional reputation, it is necessary for us to spend the time to proofread. And, depending on the document, we usually have to do it more than once.

Here are five suggestions for proofreading your own work.

1. Take Time Away From the Document First. Do not proofread a document immediately after writing it. If you have the time, put the document away for a few hours or days and then reread it. You will be amazed at how many errors you catch after a break -- even a short one.
2. Read the Document Out Loud. When you read a document out loud, you are forced to read the words that are actually written on the page, not the ones that you think are written on the page, or that are in your head.
3. Read the Document Out of Order. Sometimes you can trick yourself into being an objective reader of your own work by reading it out of order. If you are proofreading a memorandum or brief that has various sections divided by headings and sub-headings, start by proofreading one of the middle sections first. Then proofread the introduction, then the conclusion, then another middle section, etc.
4. Read Sentences Backwards. When you read a sentence normally, your eyes skim the words. But, when you read a sentence backwards, your eyes look at each word individually. If you read a sentence backwards, and come across the word “there,” for example, then you can look at the word in the context of the sentence and make sure that you really meant “there” and not “their” or “they’re.” Combine this technique with number 2, reading out loud, and you are certain to catch most errors in the document.
5. Do Not Rely Upon Spell-Check. Spell check is not more reliable than you are.  It will not correct “form,” when you meant “from,” or “statue,” when you meant “statute,” or “to,” when you meant “too.” Use it in addition to the other four suggestions listed above.

Proofreading a document takes time and patience, especially if you are working on a long document. It will be time well spent, however, and the reader will appreciate it.

2013 ASECA Securities Law Writing Competition

Association of Securities and Exchange Commission Alumni

TOPIC

Any subject in the field of securities law

ELIGIBILITY

Students enrolled at any accredited law school in the United States, with expected graduation in 2014, or later, are eligible to participate in the writing competition. Unpublished papers, papers published in any law journal or other publication during the 2013 calendar year, and papers scheduled for publication in 2013 or 2014 are eligible for submission. Co-authored papers are not eligible.

PRIZES

• 1st Place: $5,000
• 2nd Place: $3,000
• 3rd Place: $2,000

Award winners will be invited to attend ASECA's annual dinner in Washington, DC, on February 21, 2014. Travel and lodging expenses for the first place award winner will be reimbursed by ASECA up to $1,000 in actual expenses.

SUBMISSION

The submission must be received by the November 15, 2013, deadline. E-mail submissions will not be accepted.

Mail two (2) copies of submission to:

ASECA
P.O. Box 5767
Washington, DC 20016

All submissions must include author's name and contact information, including e-mail, postal address, telephone number, law school, and year of anticipated graduation. For submissions which have been published, or are scheduled to be published, the name and date of publication should be included. Receipt of submissions will be acknowledged by e-mail.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about ASECA writing competitions, go to http://www.secalumni.org/. Questions may be directed to Mary Revell, ASECA Executive Director, at info@secalumni.org or 202-462-1211.

LL.M. in Transnational Commercial Practice - Center for International Legal Studies

The Lazarski University LL.M. in Transnational Commercial Practice provides an emphasis on international business, trade, dispute resolution, and the crossborder practice of law. A concentration in American law is offered within the LL.M. program for non-U.S. lawyers. The LL.M. requires the satisfaction of 21 credits over three cycles in a two- to three-year period. Cycles I and II are taught in Salzburg, Austria, each March by faculty provided by the Center for International Legal Studies (CILS), Lazarski University, and Salzburg University. Selected participants may qualify to complete Cycle II in Budapest, Hungary, offered each June, with faculty provided by Boston University. Cycle III is taught in Warsaw, Poland, in April by faculty provided by Lazarski University. 

The next Cycles I and II will be conducted 16-29 March 2014 at the Leopoldskron Palace, the CILS venue for academic programs in Salzburg. The next Cycle III will be conducted 31 March - 12 April 2014 at Lazarski University in Warsaw. Cycle II credits also may be absolved by selected participants at the Boston University sessions each June at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. The next Boston University Cycle II session will be conducted 16-29 June 2014 in Budapest. Six credits are to be absolved at each Cycle for a total of 18 credits. The remaining three credits may be absolved during the two- or three-year period by undertaking a directed research project or by participating in any two of CILS' several continuing legal education programs offered annually in Europe, North America, and other venues throughout the world. 

The Center for International Legal Studies has more than 5,000 lawyer members throughout the world. The Law Faculty of Lazarski University has been ranked first among Polish law schools for the last five years. Boston University School of Law was established in 1872 and ranks in the top 20 of more than 200 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association. Eötvös Loránd University was founded in 1635 and is Hungary's leading law school.

The three Central European locations (Budapest, Salzburg, and Warsaw) and the two-week session format provide a great advantage to those who cannot take a year away from their work, who cannot afford a year in the United States, and/or who may have difficulty obtaining a visa to study in the United States. Tuition for 2014 is €2800.

Center for International Legal Studies
Matzenkopfgasse 19
5020 Salzburg, Austria
US Tel (970) 460- 1232
US Fax (509) 356-0077
Austria Tel 43 662 835399
Austria Fax 43 662 835399-09

www.legaledu.net 
Email: office@cils.org 

Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellowship - Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity

The Williams Institute is a national think tank at UCLA School of Law dedicated to advancing critical thought in the field of sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.

ELIGIBILITY

Law Teaching Fellowship candidates must hold a JD degree from an ABA accredited law school and be committed to a career of law teaching and scholarship in the field of sexual orientation and gender identity law. Applicants should have demonstrated an outstanding aptitude for independent legal research, preferably demonstrated through research and/or writing as a law student or through exceptional legal experience after law school. Law Teaching Fellowship candidates must have strong academic records that will make them highly competitive for law teaching jobs.

FELLOWSHIP REQUIREMENTS

The Fellowship program lasts one to two years, during which time the Fellow will:

• Complete a substantial scholarly publication and present the publication as a work-in-progress to the UCLA School of Law faculty;

• Serve as the Faculty Advisor for either the Annual Sexual Orientation Moot Court Competition or the Dukeminier Awards

Journal;

• Teach two law school courses and one undergraduate course;

• Assist with other Williams Institute research, publications, and events;

• Permit the Institute to publish any article(s) resulting from the Fellowship -- as long as such publication will not interfere with the Fellow's ability to publish such articles in a law journal;

• Acknowledge the Institute’s assistance in any published work that is facilitated by the Fellowship; and

• Work closely with a faculty mentor in order to observe and participate in teaching, as well as to complete a publishable scholarly piece.

FELLOWSHIP BENEFITS

The unique features of this Fellowship include opportunities to:

• Develop expertise in sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy;

• Work with a faculty mentor;

• Observe faculty mentors teach and discuss teaching techniques with them;

• Engage in classroom teaching;

• Participate in the rich mixture of scholarly symposia, invited lectures, and conferences of the Williams Institute and UCLA School of Law;

• Complete a published piece of research before entering the law teaching market; and

• Obtain faculty recommendations for law teaching jobs.

TERMS OF THE FELLOWSHIP

The Fellowship offers a salary of $52,000 per year and full benefits. No degree will be offered as part of the Fellowship program.

TO APPLY

To apply for the 2014 Law Teaching Fellowship, please submit the following materials to the Williams Institute by October 18,

2013:

• A cover letter summarizing your qualifications for the Law

Teaching Fellowship;

• A current resume;

• A law school transcript;

• Three letters of recommendation, including at least two from law school professors familiar with your scholarly potential;

• A list of published works, if any; and

• A detailed research proposal, no longer than ten pages in length.

DEADLINE TO APPLY: Please note that completed applications must arrive on or before October 18, 2013.

SEND APPLICATIONS TO:

Law Teaching Fellowship

ATTN: Adelin Lo

The Williams Institute

Box 951476

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1476

For any inquiries, please email Adelin Lo at: lo@law.ucla.edu.

To learn more about the Williams Institute, visit:

http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/.

Equal Opportunity Employer

The Williams Institute does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, sex, disability, height, weight, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender, pregnancy, gender identity, marital status or veteran status in employment.

Patent Law: Advice from a 2005 Grad and Patent Attorney

Dr. Kelce S. Wilson, Sr. Technical Director, Patent Litigation, for Blackberry, is a 2005 CapLaw grad, who has been working as a patent attorney.

Recently, Dr. Wilson co-authored two articles one for Intellectual Property Today and one for Law360. In an email to the Office of Professional Development about the articles, he states,

I believe [the articles] would be quite valuable to any of your students who are thinking about a career in patent law.  I wrote one as a guide for new patent attorneys who are just starting out, to assist them with long-term career planning.  The other article is a companion article for in-house general counsel, advising how to select a patent attorney for a particular matter.  As you can expect the article aimed at new patent attorneys tells them to obtain the experience that the general counsel will be seeking.  They are the same subject matter, but aimed at different audiences.

You can read the articles he references at:

• Planning Your Career in Patent Law 
• How To Select Patent Counsel

In closing his email, Dr. Wilson said, 

I have been exceptionally fortunate, in that I have specifically guided my own career path according to the advice in the articles when the idea first occurred to me back in 2005.  However, few patent attorneys that I have met have thought about their careers in a similar manner.

The OPD sends a collective "Thank You" to Dr. Wilson for his advice to future CapLaw patent attorneys!

2014-2015 Fellowship in Nonprofit Law - National Center On Philanthropy & The Law

2014-2015 Fellowship in Nonprofit Law


New York University School of Law - National Center on Philanthropy & the Law (NCPL)

Job Description
The NCPL Fellowship permits one Fellow each year to spend one year in residence at the New York University Office of the General Counsel, working closely with the General Counsel of NYU, and the office staff of eleven attorneys on legal issues facing the University.

The NCPL Fellow will delve into an unusually wide variety of legal and organizational issues and will participate in the legal work conducted by the Office of the General Counsel, including conducting factual and legal research, drafting litigation papers, transactional and policy documents, and correspondence, and participating in the lawyering enterprises of the University.

For more information, please visit http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/.

Qualifications
Fellows must be a graduate of an accredited U.S. law school. Fellows are selected for their scholarship, leadership, and commitment to practicing in the field of nonprofit law. Fellows will be selected without regard to the applicant's race, color, religion, gender, political beliefs, national origin, disability, age or sexual orientation.

Salary
Fellows are funded annually at a salary of $50,000 plus benefits.
Application Instructions: The selection process consists of a written application and interviews of final candidates. The timetable is as follows:

1.    Application Deadline: December 6, 2013

2.    Finalists Selected: December 2013

3.    Interviews Conducted: January 2014

4.    Fellow Commences Work: September 2014

Applicants must submit the following:

1.    Fellowship Application (available on line at http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/)

2.    Official Law School Transcript

3.    Resume

4.    Two Letters of Recommendation from any of the following: Law School Advisor, Law School Professor, or Former Employer

Fellowship deadlines are updated on a rolling basis. If application deadline has passed, next year's deadline will be noted once available. Alternatively, please contact organization directly for new application deadline information.

Contact Information:
Aden Munassar, Program Coordinator
Phone: 212-998-6168
Fax: 212-995-3149
ncpl.info@nyu.edu

National Center on Philanthropy and the Law
New York University School of Law
139 MacDougal Street, 1st Floor
New York, NY 10012 

2013 ACCFSL Writing Competition

Each year The American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers seeks to recognize written contributions to the field of consumer financial services law. Eligible papers include publishable articles, substantial book reviews, or book chapters; books; and student case note or comment. In any year, depending on the quality of the submissions, awards may be made in all or some of these three categories.

Awards

The awards include a cash payment ($2,500 for books, $2,000 for articles, reviews, or book chapters; and $1,000 for student work), a certificate or other token of recognition, and travel expenses to attend the College's annual dinner held in conjunction with the Spring Meeting of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association.

Guidelines

Eligible entries must discuss some aspect of consumer financial services law. Topics that relate principally to securities regulation, insurance, or the safety and soundness aspects of banking regulation are not eligible, but works on subjects within these (or other) areas will be considered if they bear directly on consumer financial services.

Deadline

The deadline for entry is December 2, 2013, and entries are eligible if they have been written or published within the twelve months preceding that date. Unpublished manuscripts should be double-spaced and conform to law review standards. All entries should be submitted in electronic format.

Entries

Entries for the 2014 competition should be submitted to:

William L. Stern, Esq.
Writing Competition Chair
Morrison & Foerster LLP
425 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel. (415) 268-7637
Fax (415) 268-7522
wstern@mofo.com

American Indian Law Review 2013-2014 Writing Competition

American Indian Law Review 2013-2014 Writing Competition Rules

Topics

Papers will be accepted on any issue concerning American Indian law or indigenous peoples.  However, topics recently published in the American Indian Law Review will not be favored.

Eligibility

The competition is open to students enrolled in J.D. or graduate law programs at accredited law schools in the United States and Canada as of the competition deadline of Jan. 31, 2014.  Editors of the American Indian Law Review are not eligible to compete.

Awards

·         The first place winner receives $1,000 and publication in the American Indian Law Review, an official periodical of the University of Oklahoma College of Law with international distribution

·         The second place winner receives $500

The third place winner receives $250

The three winning authors will be recognized on the masthead of the American Indian Law Review, and will receive copies of Felix S. Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law, provided by LexisNexis.

Deadline

All electronic entries must be received no later than 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on January 31, 2014.  Any hardcopy entries must be postmarked by that date.  Entries will be acknowledged upon receipt.  All entries become the property of the American Indian Law Review.

Judges

Papers will be judged by members of the legal profession with an interest in American Indian Law and by the editors of the American Indian Law Review.

Standards

Papers will be judged on the basis of originality and timeliness of topic, knowledge and use of applicable legal principles, proper and articulate analysis of the issues, use of authorities and extent of research, logic and reasoning in analysis, ingenuity and ability to argue by analogy, clarity and organization, correctness of format and citations, grammar and writing style, and strength and logic of conclusions.

Form

Entries must be a minimum of 20 double-spaced pages in length and a maximum of 50 double-spaced pages in length excluding footnotes or endnotes.  All citations should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (19th ed.).  The body of the email must contain the author's name, social security number, school, expected year of graduation, current address, permanent address, and email address.  Inquiries may be replied to by email.  No identifying marks (name, school, etc.) should appear on the paper itself.  All entries must have only one author. Entries must be unpublished, not currently submitted for publication elsewhere, and not currently entered in other writing competitions.  Papers entered in the American Indian Law Review writing competition may not be submitted for consideration to any other publication until such time as winning entrants are announced.  Any entries not fully in accord with required form will be ineligible for consideration.

Submission

Submissions may be emailed to the American Indian Law Review at mwaters@ou.edu by the competition deadline.  Entries may be sent as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, or PDF documents.  Although email submissions are preferred, hard-copies are acceptable.  If submitting hard-copies, mail them to:

AILR Writing Competition

American Indian Law Review

300 Timberdell Road

Norman, OK 73019

Please send an email to mwaters@ou.edu on or before the deadline to notify the AILR that you are sending a hard-copy submission.

2014-15 Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship - National Center on Philanthropy & the Law

2014-15 Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship

New York University School of Law - National Center on Philanthropy & the Law (NCPL) 

Job Description
The Fellowship, which was originally funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, permits one Fellow each year to spend one year in residence at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City, working closely with the General Counsel to Vera and her staff on legal issues faced by Vera. In addition, the Fellow will be deployed to Vera’s various projects and programs to address the legal, business, and organizational issues confronted by these projects and programs.

A Fellowship at Vera will provide a recent law school graduate with exposure to an unusually wide variety of legal and organizational issues encountered by nonprofit organizations. It also will provide the opportunity to identify an emerging or changing area of law with particular significance for nonprofits, and to explore that area in depth, examining it in the real-life context of a complex, legally sophisticated organization.

For more information, please visit http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/.

Qualifications
This year, one Fellowship will be awarded to a graduate of an accredited U.S. law school. Fellows are selected for their scholarship, leadership, and commitment to practicing in the field of nonprofit law. Fellows will be selected without regard to the applicant's race, color, religion, gender, political beliefs, national origin, disability, age, or sexual orientation.

Salary
Fellows are funded annually at a salary of $50,000 plus benefits.
Application Instructions: The selection process consists of a written application and interviews of final candidates. The timetable is as follows:

1. Application Deadline: December 6, 2013
2. Finalists Selected: December 2013
3. Interviews Conducted: January 2014
4. Fellow Commences Work: September 2014

Applicants must submit the following:

1. Fellowship Application (available on line at http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/)
2. Official Law School Transcript
3. Resume
4. Two Letters of Recommendation from any of the following: Law School Advisor, Law School Professor, or Former Employer

Fellowship deadlines are updated on a rolling basis.  If application deadline has passed, next deadline will be noted once available.  Alternatively, please contact organization directly for new application deadline information.

Contact Information:
Aden Munassar
Program Coordinator
Phone: 212-998-6168
Fax: 212-995-3149
ncpl.info@nyu.edu


National Center on Philanthropy and the Law
NYU School of Law
139 MacDougal Street, 1st Floor
New York, NY 10012