As discussed previously, some ideas that I've raised for our clerk program this term are writing hypothetical briefs, discussing questions of the week and making a law guide. I have checked with the clerks and all of them are willing to continue with the program, all that's needed is some tasks that we can give to keep themselves busy and train their legal knowledge at the same time. So here are the details:
1. Writing hypothetical briefs
This was the main activity of the clerk program before it became inactive. A Justice would give a hypothetical case and ask the clerks to write briefs as if they were actually arguing their position before the Court. During a string of R4Rs in summer last year, these actual cases were even included in the clerk program, and some of these hypothetical briefs were officially submitted after some feedback. Potential topics on this can be quite expansive: we can take inspiration from our most controversial cases and rulings, for instance, and observe how the clerks would argue their positions in their briefs. While I feel this is the most rewarding task, it is also the most effort-intensive since the clerks would have to spend a significant amount of time conducting their research and writing lengthy briefs. For that reason, participation may likely not be much. I think doing one hypothetical case per month would be appropriate, taking into account the efforts required of our clerks.
2. Discussing legal questions of the week
A more relaxed form of legal education for our clerks is discussing questions of the week. My concept is that we will team up to write some bite-sized legal hypotheticals and every week, ask our clerks how they would react as a Justice in those situations. If you ever read Zyvetskistaahn's hypotheticals in judicial election threads, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. In fact, this was inspired by their example. We can observe the answers by our clerks and give corrections where they get the law wrong, which would help improve their understanding of our legal system.
3. Creating a law guide
This serves two purposes: improving our clerks' understanding of the law and educating the broader region about our legal system. This is a big project so I expect the whole Court would need to participate and work on it over the term. If we want to start somewhere manageable, our Bill of Rights is a good start. It contains only 11 articles, but each one is significant and likely has Court rulings about them. The key here is to explain it at a level that the average citizen/resident would understand, so less legal jargon and more simple words. Simplicity and clarity over flowery language. George Orwell's six rules for writing put it better than I could:
1. Writing hypothetical briefs
This was the main activity of the clerk program before it became inactive. A Justice would give a hypothetical case and ask the clerks to write briefs as if they were actually arguing their position before the Court. During a string of R4Rs in summer last year, these actual cases were even included in the clerk program, and some of these hypothetical briefs were officially submitted after some feedback. Potential topics on this can be quite expansive: we can take inspiration from our most controversial cases and rulings, for instance, and observe how the clerks would argue their positions in their briefs. While I feel this is the most rewarding task, it is also the most effort-intensive since the clerks would have to spend a significant amount of time conducting their research and writing lengthy briefs. For that reason, participation may likely not be much. I think doing one hypothetical case per month would be appropriate, taking into account the efforts required of our clerks.
2. Discussing legal questions of the week
A more relaxed form of legal education for our clerks is discussing questions of the week. My concept is that we will team up to write some bite-sized legal hypotheticals and every week, ask our clerks how they would react as a Justice in those situations. If you ever read Zyvetskistaahn's hypotheticals in judicial election threads, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. In fact, this was inspired by their example. We can observe the answers by our clerks and give corrections where they get the law wrong, which would help improve their understanding of our legal system.
3. Creating a law guide
This serves two purposes: improving our clerks' understanding of the law and educating the broader region about our legal system. This is a big project so I expect the whole Court would need to participate and work on it over the term. If we want to start somewhere manageable, our Bill of Rights is a good start. It contains only 11 articles, but each one is significant and likely has Court rulings about them. The key here is to explain it at a level that the average citizen/resident would understand, so less legal jargon and more simple words. Simplicity and clarity over flowery language. George Orwell's six rules for writing put it better than I could:
We can assign a Justice or a clerk to write a guide for an article of the BoR, and have the rest review once the drafts are finished. Just like planning a TNS edition. We should preferably start working on it now if we want to produce something concrete by the end of the term.
