Today, September 8, is National Ampersand Day. In addition to sharing a few fun facts about this squiggly symbol, we will discuss a not-so-recent but still-so-trendy practice in the naming of law firms. Over the last 15 years or so, BigLaw has adopted a more polished, less conventional approach to branding. Instead of the more traditional practice of identifying all named partners in the title of the firm, larger firms have opted for more airy austerity. In 2010, just three Am Law 100 firms officially used a single surname, but in 2023, these abbreviated brands are the rule more than the exception. Shortened names may help build stronger brand identity, as those in favor of the trend like to point out, but these elegant eponyms, according to others, lack a critical element – the ampersand, a most elegant emblem itself.
Read moreA Word by Any Other Name: Legal Writing Resources for National Thesaurus Day
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
January 18 is National Thesaurus Day, which “honors Peter Mark Roget, the author of Roget’s Thesaurus, who was born on this day in 1779.” In recognition of the beauty of language, we offer some resources to improve/enhance/revamp/reform/upgrade your legal writing.
Read moreIn Celebration of Punctuation
A lot of the work we do as librarians is investigative in nature. Secretly, there are many detectives among us. We are a curious lot who always want to know more. We can also be a fussy bunch who like words and language and who insist on using the most appropriate reference sources to get. things. right. We appreciate the rules of grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation and enjoy discussing the merits of various style guides. Copy editing, at least for this librarian, holds great appeal (as does the lost art of sentence diagramming).
In honor of National Punctuation Day, which falls every year on September 24, we at the Harris County Law Library are paying tribute with a list of resources that highlight the important role of punctuation and grammar in the drafting and interpretation of the law. Few disciplines outside of law rely so heavily on the written word. Disputes over misplaced (or missing) commas, especially in contracts and legislation, and even in the United States Constitution, are just some of the persnickety punctuation problems to plague the process. See below for examples of apostrophe catastrophes, comma bombs, and more.
· The Law and Punctuation — In Custodia Legis, Law Library of Congress
· Punctuation and the Law — American Bar Journal
· Punctuation and the Interpretation of Statutes — Connecticut Law Review
· How A Comma Gave Americans The Right To Own Guns — Business Insider
· The Commas That Cost Companies Millions — BBC
· Commas in Court Cases — Online Writing Training, Mary Morel
· The Most Expensive Typo in Legislative History — Priceonomics
· The Supreme Court is Split on Apostrophes — ABA Journal
· Supreme Court Splits…on Grammar Writing and Style — Scribes Journal of Legal Writing
· The Apostrophe's Battle Is Mountainous — The Atlantic
Texas Bar Journal Short Story Contest 2019
Anton Chekhov wrote The Bet in 1889. Franz Kafka authored Before the Law in 1915. And more than 100 years later, Rosann Gordon penned The Protective Order, the winning entry in last year’s Texas Bar Journal Short Story Contest, an annual opportunity to showcase the creative talents of Texas lawyers.
Attorneys are naturally adept storytellers. They are also keen observers of human behavior and good with a turn of phrase. Combine these qualities with a knowledge of the law, and perhaps you, too, have a prize-winning work of short legal fiction to share with the world. Craft a compelling narrative with convincing characters who engage in conflict and seek a resolution. Add a little intrigue, action, drama, comedy, romance, or some combination thereof, and package the whole creation into 2,000 words or less, and you may be the next award-winning author! To enter the contest, click here. Submit your completed entry by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 4, 2019.
Not a Texas lawyer? Don’t fret! The ABA Journal/Ross Writing Contest for Legal Short Fiction will accept entries for their competition through June 1, 2019.
The Lawyerist.com has, in years past, has held its own Legal Short Fiction Contest, and previous winning stories are available for reading and inspiration here.
Good luck! Happy writing and reading from the Harris County Law Library.
O'Connor's Online Federal Resources
The Harris County Law Library provides access to an excellent collection of online legal resources, including Westlaw, LexisAdvance, and HeinOnline. These databases, whose subscription fees can be too costly for solo and small firm attorneys to maintain, are available to use completely free of charge in the Law Library.
One of our databases that many attorneys and self-represented litigants are using with increasing frequency is O'Connor's Online. O'Connor's is an established and trusted name in legal publishing, particularly in Texas. The O'Connor's print publications are well-known as go-to resources for expert commentaries, legal forms, and for annotated codes and rules. The O'Connor's Online database provides the same quality of information, covering the same content that's published in the print volumes, all conveniently packaged in a searchable format.
O'Connor's Online is not new to the Law Library, but the addition of federal sources is a recent upgrade. Law Library patrons can now access federal commentaries, forms, statutes, rules, and charts using the multiple search tools built into the database.
For a broad overview of all the available federal content, explore the master menu: Click on the Pretrial & Trial Procedure entry on the Browse menu. This will provide you with a complete listing (shown in the image above) of all the federal and Texas resources available in each content category.
For a more specific search, enter keywords to perform a full content search of the entire database. Then, narrow your search results by selecting the appropriate jurisdiction from the Filters menu on the left. As an example, you may search for the keywords employment discrimination and then narrow your search results to federal sources. Filter your results once more to view only forms. One of the results in your list will be a general complaint for an ADA violation, Form 2B:16. O'Connor's Online is a terrific tool for accessing all the content that's familiar to users of the print titles and a user-friendly platform for newcomers.
Final tip: Once you've located the form you wish to use, you will have a few options -- download the form to a USB drive, email the document to yourself as an attachment, print the form at our Copy Center, or open it as an editable Word (or Word Perfect) document. There's no better -- or easier -- way to use the O'Connor's forms!
If you need assistance using O'Connor's Online, the Law Library staff is always happy to help. Further information about navigating the O'Connor's database is available here:
