Writing a Seminar Paper
Approaching the Topic and Claim,
or “How to Write an ULWR With a
Purpose, Without Writing a Brief”
Why Write a Seminar Paper?
• Opportunity to publish, develop professional reputation
• Writing product for jobs, especially judicial clerkships
• Opportunity to specialize in topics of interest, to learn
substantive law at a new level
• Self-fulfillment achieved from producing an independent
product – one of your last experiences in truly
independent scholarly writing before you will be asked to
be an advocate
Writing Contests
Legal writing competitions blog:
http://legalwritingcompetitions.blogspot.com/
One comprehensive site is
http://law.richmond.edu/students/writing/catalog/
Another good website is available at
http://law.lclark.edu/academics/student_writing_
competitions/
Books about Seminar Papers
• Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law
Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar
Papers (4th ed., Foundation Press 2010) –
emphasis on picking topic
• Elizabeth Fajans & Mary L. Falk, Scholarly
Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers. Law
Review Notes, and Law Review Competition
Papers (4th ed., West 2011) – emphasis on the
writing process
Picking and Grounding a Topic
• My jurisprudence final exam: 50% for the
answer/50% for the question
• Topic and the question asked (thesis) in a
seminar paper is important to the research
and writing process that will follow
What is a Good Topic?
• Relates to the substance of the class – e.g., I teach energy
law. This is probably not the class for a paper on the equal protection
clause.
• Has some relevance to legal debates – e.g., a paper on
whether the planet will come to an end because of the depletion of fossil
fuels or whether it is sustainable is probably better written for an ecology
class or an economics class.
• Has some legal, analytical or methodological substance
– can you envision the paper drawing on legal doctrine, taking an analytical
perspective (presenting/addressing arguments that would be appropriate to
a law class), or will it have an analytical approach (historical, philosophical,
psychological, economic, empirical)? E.g., of Kyoto.
• Will be researchable? – e.g., German climate change policies.
How Does Topic Relate to
Research?
Do not pick your topic in a vacuum!
1) Initially, it will be best to treat your topic as
tentative, refining the topic along the way. This
is your “drop/add” period.
–
At this stage the topic will narrow your research, but
not so much so that it hamstrings you to a very
specific question.
Researching the Paper Topic
2) Make sure that you have seriously READ
at least 5 primary and secondary sources
relating to your topic.
Researching the Paper Topic
3) Refine your topic and settle in on a more
precise specification. “Drop/Add” period is
over.
The Next Step – Relating the Topic
to a Claim
A claim = a thesis
According to Volokh, “Good legal
scholarship should make 1) a claim that is
2) novel, 3) nonobvious, 4) useful, 5)
sound and 6) seen by the reader to be
nonobvious, useful and sound.”
The Claim
What are some examples???????
The Claim, examples
1) Law X is unconstitutional because . . . .
2) The legislature ought to enact the following
statute . . . .
3) Properly interpreted, this
statute/regulation/treaty means . . . .
4) This case/doctrine explains/contradicts this
other case/doctrine because . . .
The claim, examples
5)
This law is likely to have the following side effects . . . .
[ and therefore should be rejected or modifed to say . .
.]
6)
Courts have interpreted the statute/regulation/treaty in
the following ways and therefore the
statute/regulation/treaty should be amended as follows
. . . .because . . .
7)
My [empirical, historical, philosophical, economic,
psychological, or religious] perspective on this law
shows the law is flawed and should be changed [or
not].
Approaching the claim with
modesty
-Develop your claim while you are still researching
-At this stage, treat the claim as a hypothesis
-Data (i.e., cases, secondary literature, etc.) may
lead you to reject or modify the claim, but do not
wed yourself to the claim against clear evidence
that contradicts it, unless you can
reject/distinguish/explain away that evidence in
a sound manner
Keeping an open mind
• Talk to faculty about your claim
• Modify it by adding nuance – factors,
exceptions, etc.
• Leave open the possibility that you may
need to substantially modify your claim
during your writing process – the other
50%
• Distinguish the descriptive from the
prescriptive parts of your claim
Once you select a topic and identify a
claim, the writing process will not take care
of itself.
However, you will now be writing with a
purpose, rather than writing in search of
one.
THE END