Plagiarism conjures up the image of a low-life stealing others' words, verbatim, without quotation or attribution. When it turns out that the low-life is a federal judge, a partner in a law firm, or a member of Congress, however, it is evident that plagiarism is more than simple theft; it must have a much more nuanced meaning. Moreover, when law students are held to a stricter standard than legal practitioners, it is also evident that there are nuances to the nuances. In the legal profession, context-facts, intent, inflection, credibility-is everything; and, so too, in assessing whether one's words have been plagiarized.

By any simple definition likening plagiarism to theft, the legal profession is inundated with plagiarism. Even a cursory glance at legal culture reveals widespread acceptance of using others' works. Lawyers and judges make their living by appropriating language that has worked for others.

Lawyers.
If replicating someone else's work is a form of flattery, lawyers have raised the form to art. Publishers create legal forms that lawyers use without attribution. Law firms create practice manuals instructing younger lawyers to take others' words and pass them off to clients as newly minted. Even the rule makers get into the act by drafting model forms, which lawyers are encouraged to use and which are sufficient, on their face, to survive judicial scrutiny. If "magic words" have worked in the past-courts have accepted them, they have been given a fixed meaning as terms of art, they have become industry boilerplate-no second thought is given before embracing the language as one's own. Thus, no one should be shocked that lawyers may see plagiarism as a far more complicated matter than others who use words for a living.

Judges.
Making matters even worse, judges are skilled in the practice of taking other people's words. Trial judges, under enormous time constraints, frequently rely on the lawyers in a case to draft language for orders issued over the judge's signature. They publish findings of fact drafted by lawyers. They rely upon model instructions to charge juries. Appellate judges are no better. They have no first-hand knowledge of facts and hence adopt-usually without attribution-factual statements written by a lower court judge or an attorney. Sometimes they "write" opinions that are taken directly from their law clerks' drafts. On other occasions, even when the words of an opinion are those of the judge, the opinion may contain entire sections that are duplicates of a lawyer's brief or organization or both. The very essence of the judicial method depends upon the adoption of prior judicial opinions through citation and adoption of language, often without quotation or direct acknowledgment that the words used were crafted by another, who in turn probably found them in someone else's work. If lawyers are plagiarists, they have been taught well by judges.

One might conclude from all this that plagiarism is rampant in the legal profession; nothing could be further from the truth. Plagiarism exists in the legal profession, but not in its daily practice. The problem is defining, and understanding, the contexts in which using others' work is appropriate.

It is important to place plagiarism within a proper cultural setting before carefully analyzing the practices within the legal profession, for many of the complexities of legal practice can be traced to society's general ambivalence about plagiarism. Although plagiarism is a high sin among academics who make their living through scholarship, in popular culture people often take others' works for their own. Whether through advertising, where one successful campaign gives birth to another virtually identical advertisement for a different product, or through successive films of the same subject, or through the reading of wire stories on the news, our public use of others' work does not raise a ripple in the public consciousness. Accordingly, one ought not to be too surprised that issues of plagiarism often draw a yawn outside academic circles.

Among legal academics, however, plagiarism issues are important. We worry about our words being stolen by others. We worry that we will not receive proper credit for our labors. And we worry that our students may go into the world without understanding the prohibition of plagiarism, or worse, with an attitude that it just doesn't matter.

The challenge within legal education is to give students an appreciation of the mores of legal practice while also giving them the tools to recognize improper use of others' words. By appreciating legal writing within context, one can learn the particular culture of plagiarism within the law, and avoid unethical behavior.

When in doubt, fully attribute, accurately quote, and properly cite.
Doing so makes plagiarism unlikely (or at least easily detected). With full disclosure the risk lies only with appropriating someone else's entire project, design, or ideas, and such an appropriation may be proper for some projects.

Use others' words, without attribution, when their words are intended to be copied.
Forms, official practice manuals, and officially prepared practice aids are meant to be appropriated. However, students should take care not to use such materials because they are prepared for practitioners to use to save time. They are not meant to be used in school unless the instructor-the audience for whom an assignment is prepared-has authorized the use of others' works.

Use the language of courts with great caution.
Although judges and lawyers do not often cite or even use quotation marks to set off language of earlier opinions (or factual discussions within cases), students should be more careful to delineate their own work. Lawyers and judges are engaged in advocacy, where their task is to convince others by effective and inexpensive means. They use others' words as shorthand, in order to persuade. They cite when it is effective advocacy. Otherwise, they cut corners. Of course, they act within a culture in which judges in prior opinions fully expect that their words will be used by others.

When students simulate the activities of lawyers and judges, however, they are engaged in a different project. They are doing scholarship, and demonstrating their competency to an instructor. In such situations, they must do their own work to allow the instructor to assess their learning.

Never cite scholarly work without full attribution.
The authors of scholarship intend neither students nor practitioners to use their words and theories without attribution. Yet, even legal scholars understand that their work may never be cited by a court that adopts a theory or a lawyer that advocates a position. Entering the legal arena, the legal scholar must take the advocacy world as she finds it.

In sum, plagiarism in the practice of law exists. But, some types of plagiarism are not unethical. The profession requires law to be practiced efficiently; advocates must be able to make arguments without unnecessary fuss. However, law students do not have the freedom of their practicing counterparts. They must be attentive to academic conventions for use of others' work. Until licensed, students are bound to a strict code: cite, attribute, and create on one's own. Understanding context, knowing when one has received implied consent to use someone else's words, appreciating one's audience, and comprehending the purpose of a writing project take great skill. The key to understanding plagiarism in the law is solid training in legal writing and the keen sense of culture that comes from professional education.