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The Legal Writing Handbook: Analysis, Research, and Writing, Ninth Edition
No full textThe Legal Writing Handbook offers a complete resource on legal writing. Part I provides students with an introduction to the U.S. Legal System; Part II gives an overview of legal research, with both an introduction to sources and to research strategies; Part III introduces students to predictive memos, e-memos, and client letters; Part IV covers motion briefs; Part V offers an overview of appellate briefs; Part VI introduces oral advocacy; Part VII is a guide to effective writing; Part VIII is a guide to correct writing; and Part IX focuses on the needs of ESL writers.https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-books/1097/thumbnail.jp
Getting Our House in Order: Mapping the Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine onto Washington’s Inclusionary Zoning Policies after Sheetz v. County of El Dorado
No full textThe unconstitutional conditions doctrine dictates what a government can and cannot do when exercising its police powers to promote community interests. Recent Supreme Court jurisprudence highlights a special application of the doctrine in the land use context, with Sheetz v. County of El Dorado recognizing constitutional scrutiny of legislative decisions. After decades of using its own analysis, Washington courts now use the federal approach in these cases. Land use exists at the forefront of Washington policies and the state maintains a sharp focus on the affordable housing crisis. One approach enacted at the local and state level is mandatory inclusionary zoning, which is ripe for constitutional scrutiny. This Comment forecasts the legal challenges Washington legislators will face after Sheetz and recommends that jurisdictions exercise caution accordingly. This Comment first provides an overview of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine as it evolved over the course of a century before isolating land-use decisions. Then, this Comment discusses Washington’s approach to deciding unconstitutional conditions disputes and the state’s most prominent inclusionary zoning policy. The shortcomings of previous mandatory inclusionary zoning programs combined with renewed constitutional scrutiny of those measures demand a more flexible approach to housing. However, the course of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine also illustrates a shift from trust in governments’ protection of their citizens to an emphasis on individual property rights.
This Comment concludes with two arguments: (1) courts should afford local governments more deference in their land-use decisions, and (2) inclusionary zoning policies should account for alternatives and previous shortcomings
Another Broken Promise: The MMIWG2S Crisis and the Violation of the Federal Indian Trust Obligation
No full textIndigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people go missing and are murdered at rates nearly ten times the national average in the United States. This disproportionate epidemic of violence has been labeled the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit (MMIWG2S) crisis. Several factors exacerbate this crisis. First, European colonizers used violence against Native people, especially women and Two-Spirit people, as a tactic of control and domination since first contact in the 1600s. Second, nearly two hundred years of legislative actions and case law have effectively stripped Native Nations of all criminal jurisdictional power over crimes committed on their land or against their citizens. Third, systemic racism and bias within federal and state law enforcement agencies resulted in the mishandling and dismissal of thousands of MMIWG2S cases. The United States federal government plays a central role in perpetrating each of these root causes and has only recently taken initial steps to address the crisis.
This Comment argues that the U.S. federal government’s failure to prevent and address the MMIWG2S crisis violates the legally enforceable federal Indian trust obligation between the U.S. federal government and Native Nations. In connecting the federal Indian trust obligation to this crisis, this Comment explores how this legally enforceable fiduciary duty may be utilized to address the root causes of the MMIWG2S crisis moving forward
Edit Like a Professional: Why Lawyers Should Borrow from the Nonlegal Editing Toolbox
No full textLawyers spend much of their professional lives writing, yet too often their editing practices remain narrowly legalistic. The assumption is that editing legal writing must differ dramatically from editing other forms of professional prose. But in fact, many of the most effective editing techniques have long been practiced outside the law: in publishing, journalism, and technical writing. By adopting these methods, lawyers can produce documents that are not only substantively sound but also clear, persuasive, and readable
Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach
No full textTechnology is difficult to study, let alone regulate. While law is uniquely positioned to channel technology toward human flourishing, technology poses special challenges to law and governance, obscuring human will and responsibility, stalling regulatory action, and putting rights and values into constant defense. The consequences can be dire. The United States spent three decades without a plan for nuclear waste disposal and still lacks comprehensive privacy laws many years into the information revolution. Law and technology as a field, meanwhile, has yet to cohere.In light of these challenges, Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach offers a defensible and consistent approach to the legal analysis of technology, one capable of navigating technology\u27s capacity to confuse and confound. Ryan Calo puts forward a step-by-step methodology for thinking about and ultimately challenging technology to meet society\u27s demands. The book demonstrates that, no less than health law or law and economics, law and technology deserves a field of its own. To this end, it helps formalize legal analysis of physical and digital artifacts and systems, sowing the seeds for the concept of law and technology itself.https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-books/1104/thumbnail.jp
De Facto Death Sentences for Misdemeanor Offenses: A Right to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder Induction Under the Washington Law Against Discrimination
No full textThe opioid crisis remains one of the deadliest public health emergencies in the United States, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities, including people in the criminal legal system. Medication for opioid use disorder is the recognized standard of care for treating opioid use disorder. Despite the fact that medications have also been shown to reduce overdose deaths and relapse rates, many prisons and jails continue to impose blanket prohibitions on medications for opioid use disorder for nonpregnant individuals, placing them at an elevated risk for acute withdrawal, suicide, and fatal overdose.
This comment examines the systemic barriers to access medication for opioid use disorder in correctional settings and explores the legal frameworks advocates have used to compel such access, including relying on the Eighth Amendment and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, this comment argues that the Washington Law Against Discrimination offers a pathway forward for individuals who enter custody addicted to opioids but have no prior prescription for medication for opioid use disorder. When jails screen, diagnose, and treat incoming individuals with medical conditions like asthma or diabetes according to the community standard of care, but fail to screen, diagnose, and treat individuals entering custody with opioid use disorder according to the standard of care, they engage in unlawful disability discrimination under the Washington Law Against Discriminatio
