Glossary Flashcards
To confirm a judgement on appeal, or uphold it. Meaning, the appellate court confirms that the lower court ruled “correctly.”
Affirm
A party who appeals a lower court’s decision, usually seeking to reverse that decision. A party would do this if they lose a court.
Appellant
A party against whom an appeal is taken. Their role is to respond to that appeal, and they usually want to affirm (or keep) the lower court’s decision.
Appellee
This is the type of court that hears appeals. This means the party that lost at the lower court level appealed to a higher court. The cases you typically read in law school are at the appellate court level.
Appellate Court
The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, also known as CALI, is a non-profit consortium of mostly US law schools that conducts applied research and development in the area of computer-mediated legal education. The organization is best known in law schools for CALI Lessons and online interactive tutorials in legal subjects. They also have things like podcasts on various subjects. Your library will be able to tell you how to create a CALI account. At some schools, there are “CALI Awards”, which are given to the student that gets the top grade in the particular class. You might hear students say they “CALI’d” a class, and that might be because they did CALI lessons!
CALI
This is the book most legal writing courses, law firms, judges, and law journals use for uniform citation. You might hear people talk about “bluebooking”, which generally means checking citations.
BlueBook
The Bar Exam, or sometimes just “bar”, is what most (there are some state exceptions, but not many) lawyers must take in order to be licensed. When you graduate law school, you have a Juris Doctor degree, but you are not a lawyer. You don’t become a lawyer until you pass your jurisdiction’s bar exam, and are sworn in. The Bar Exam is a two day test in either July or Feb. Your Academic Support person on campus will tell you more.
The Bar Exam
A legal dictionary. You should always look up legal terms using a legal dictionary versus a normal dictionary, as sometimes the terms will have different meanings. Any trustworthy legal dictionary will suffice for this, it just so happens that “Black’s” is the most famous.
Black’s Law Dictionary
As you read cases for class, you will want to “brief” them. You will receive instruction on how to do this, likely during orientation. Essentially, it is a summary of the case, so that you can remember things like important facts, issues, and the holding, when you are called on in class, and when you need to study and review.
Case Brief
The law derived from a collection of cases. Essentially, judges will write opinions, and that creates caw law, or precedent. Case law can be common law, or, it can be used to explain and supplement statutory law.
Case Law
A legal reference. In legal writing (aside from most exams) you will want to “cite” your sources. You will learn more about this in your legal writing courses. You typically use the bluebook to determine the correct citation format.
Citation
The process, or rules, of a case. So, how to file a claim, and which court has jurisdiction. Essentially the rules of court. Typically, Civil Procedure courses will use FRCP, or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
“Civ Pro”: This is the abbreviation typically used for the subject of Civil Procedure.
Upon graduating law school, you can apply to clerk for a judge. This typically involves a great deal of research and writing, though the experiences may differ slightly from judge to judge and court to court. Typically, it’s a fairly prestigious honor.
Clerking
Law school training in which students participate in actual cases under the supervision of a practicing attorney or law professor.
Clinic
Some of your professors might use “_____” in class. This has long been a staple of law school classes, but not every professor is the same. Essentially, it means calling on students without warning, or without looking for volunteers. So, the professor might say “Mr. Jones, what was the holding in Smith v Smith” even though you haven’t raised your hand or volunteered. Every professor runs their class in their own way, so after 1-2 classes, you’ll start to get a feeling for how your professor “____”, if they do so at all.
Cold Calling
The body of law derived from cases, rather than a statute.
Common Law
This is often used in legal writing, and means you have left out a proper analysis. You don’t want your writing to be conclusory, you want a conclusion supported by analysis. Your legal writing professors, and your academic support professors, will help you with this.
Conclusory
