Legal Writing Prof Blog

Prospective Law Teachers' Workshop and the Aspiring Law Teachers' Workshop

The Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS), a regional association of law schools, hosts a Prospective Law Teachers Workshop (PLTW), which provides intensive opportunities for VAPs, fellows, and practitioners to network and participate in mock interviews and mock job talks—prior to the actual teaching market. The Workshop also includes a luncheon (separate ticket purchase required) and 1-on-1 sessions for candidates to receive faculty feedback on their CVs and FAR forms. This year’s Prospective Law Teachers Workshop will be held at The Boca Raton Resort and Club in Boca Raton, Florida. The Workshop will begin on Sunday, July 23, 2023, and end on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. 

If you are interested in participating specifically in the Prospective Law Teachers' Workshop, please send your CV, and a brief statement explaining your interest, to Professors Shakira D. Pleasant, spleasan@uic.edu, and Carla L. Reyes, carla.reyes@smu.edu.  Please also confirm that you are planning on entering the teaching market in August 2023. Applications are due by March 27, 2023, with decisions made no later than April 1. Past PLTW participants have secured tenure-track appointments at an impressive array of law schools.

Separate and apart from the PLTW, SEALS also offers a workshop that is broader programming for anyone considering academia—even if one is earlier in the process. The Aspiring Law Teachers' Workshop (ALTW) includes sessions on designing your teaching package, navigating the market as a nontraditional candidate, mapping academic opportunities, what’s in a job talk, crafting scholarship goals, the art of self-promotion, as well as a luncheon (separate ticket purchase required). You can peruse the programming, which will take place between Sunday, July 23, through Wednesday, July 26, by searching “aspiring law teachers workshop” at this link.

The goal of these two workshops is to provide robust opportunities for those who hope to one day enter legal academia.

Frequently Asked Questions:

They both sound great. What exactly is the difference?

The Prospective Workshop is designed for those who are going on the market this fall (and will be submitting their FAR form), in 2023, and desiring a chance to moot job talks and interviews in advance of that time. The Aspiring Workshop is designed for anyone considering academia, including those who may not yet be ready to moot a job talk in the summer. Participation in the Prospective Workshop is by acceptance-only while the Aspiring Workshop is open to everyone. 

Is this the new faculty recruitment initiative that I heard SEALS has put together?

No, this is not the new hiring initiative that SEALS is conducting. That process is entirely separate. Information about SEALS’ new faculty recruitment initiative can be found by clicking here. 

Hat tip to Prof. Shakira D. Pleasant, Director of the Legal Writing Resource Center at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

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LMU in Knoxville is Hiring

Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law in Knoxville, Tennessee is seeking to hire an entry-level faculty member to focus on legal writing and other essential practice skills. The successful candidate will play a key role on a small, dedicated team, with an emphasis on guiding students as they develop the skills needed to succeed in practice. The position will offer opportunities to design and teach required courses in legal writing as well as multiple options for electives, including upper-level seminars and experiential-learning courses. They're also hiring two entry-level positions in their academic and bar success program.

Hat tip to Jason Smith.

(mew)

LMU in Knoxville is Hiring

Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law in Knoxville, Tennessee is seeking to hire an entry-level faculty member to focus on legal writing and other essential practice skills. The successful candidate will play a key role on a small, dedicated team, with an emphasis on guiding students as they develop the skills needed to succeed in practice. The position will offer opportunities to design and teach required courses in legal writing as well as multiple options for electives, including upper-level seminars and experiential-learning courses. They're also hiring two entry-level positions in their academic and bar success program.

Hat tip to Jason Smith.

(mew)

University of San Francisco

The University of San Francisco is looking for at least one Visiting Professor for 2023-2024. USF Law welcomes outstanding candidates in Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, and Criminal Law. Secondary expertise in Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Wills and Trusts, and / or Race and the Law is an advantage. The Visitor(s) may also have the opportunity to teach an elective/seminar, if the schedule permits, as part of a commitment to two courses each semester.

Hat tip to Edith Ho.

(mew)

Scribes' National Conference for Law Review Editors

Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers--will host a national conference to train law students who have been selected to serve as law review or journal editors. The online conference will take place on March 26, 2023.

This conference will help guide new law review and journal editors as they plan their upcoming year. The conference will begin with a plenary session titled "Top Tips from Top Authors." Confirmed panelists include Professors Richard Delgado (Seattle), Martha Minow (Harvard), Devon Carbado (UCLA), and Nancy Levit (UMKC), all of whom are first-rate legal scholars with expertise in legal scholarship. The plenary will be followed by three concurrent sessions featuring law professors, outgoing and recent editors, and other experts.

The registration fee includes 12 months of access to the complete set of 2022-2023 Scribes Second Sunday webinar series recordings, which includes topics like effective board transitions, understanding plagiarism, working with law librarians, understanding your journal's history and legacy, the business of law reviews, and more.

Click here to visit the registration page for the Scribes' National Conference for Law Review Editors.  

Hat tip to Darby Dickerson.

(mew)

Favorite Ready Reference Materials at the Law Library of Congress

There's a guest post we think you'll like at In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress. Olivia Kane-Cruz writes about some favorite "Ready Reference Materials" at the LLOC, the world's largest law library. Have a look by clicking here.

(mew)

Kim Ricardo Named Interim Associate Dean at UIC

Professor Kim Ricardo of the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law has been promoted to Interim Associate Dean of Experiential Education at UIC Law. Kim will continue to lead the UIC Lawyering Skills Program as its Director.

Kim is a Past President of the Legal Writing Institute.

Hat tip to Teri McMurtry-Chubb

(mew)

AALS Section on Global Engagement Outstanding Achievement Award Winner Announced

The Association of American Law Schools' Section on Global Engagement has announced that the 2023 Winner of its Outstanding Achievement Award is Professor David Austin of the California Western School of Law.

The Award will be presented to Professor Austin next month during the AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego.

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AALS Comparative Law Section Announces Winner of 2023 Tushnet Prize

The Association of American Law Schools' Section on Comparative Law has announced that the winner of the 2023 Tushnet Prize is Professor Anna Conley of the University of Montana Alexander Blewett III School of Law. She was recognized for her article, "Comparing Essential Components of Transnational Jurisdiction: A Proposed Comparative Methodology," which was published in the Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law. Professor Conley's article is an updated and condensed version of her dissertation for her Doctor of Laws in Comparative Law from the McGill University Faculty of Law.

Professor Conley is an Assistant Professor at the University of Montana, where her areas of expertise include civil litigation, comparative law, international law, and human rights. She has a J.D. from the George Washington Law School, and an LL.M. and Doctor of Civil Laws (D.C.L.) from the McGill University Faculty of Law. She has litigated many large-scale complex cases, participated in several rule of law initiatives, and published extensively in international and comparative law. She was an adjunct professor at the University of Montana Department of Political Science teaching Constitutional Law, International Law and Comparative Law from 2017 to 2021. She also was an adjunct professor at the Alexander Blewett III School of Law teaching Global Perspectives on Law and Public International Law from 2007 to 2016.

The Tushnet Prize recognizes scholarly excellence in any subject of comparative law by an untenured scholar at an AALS Member School. The Prize is given to the author or authors of a scholarly article judged to have made an important contribution in the field of comparative law. For the 2023 award, this article must have been published in an academic journal between July 2021 and November 2022.

The Prize was awarded for the first time at the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting. All untenured scholars—including but not limited to tenure-track professors, visiting assistant professors, lecturers, academic fellows, doctoral candidates—are eligible.

The Tushnet Prize is named for Mark Tushnet, a former president of the Association of American Law Schools and the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A former law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, Professor Tushnet is an authoritative voice in constitutional law and theory. His scholarship spans all areas of public law, including comparative constitutional law, a field in which he has co-authored a leading casebook. A respected teacher, a devoted mentor, and an influential scholar, he retired from the Harvard faculty in June 2020.

Professor Conley joins this list of previous winners of the Tushnet Prize:

• Mark Jia (Harvard Law School) (2022)
• Pamela Bookman (Fordham University School of Law) (2021)
• Jorge Farinacci (Inter-American University of Puerto Rico School of Law) (2020)

The AALS Comparative Law Section Awards Ceremony will be held on Saturday, January 7, 2023 at 12:00 p.m. in the Marriott Grand Ballroom 12, Lobby Level, North Tower, Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina Hotel.

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AALS Law Libraries Section Award for Outstanding Service and Contributions

The Association of American Law Schools' Section on Law Libraries and Legal Information announced that the winner of its Section Award for Outstanding Service and Contributions to the Profession is Anne Klinefelter of the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Professor Klinefelter is Director of the Law Library and Henry P. Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law at UNC School of Law. She teaches courses in privacy law and writes and speaks on information law and policy topics, particularly as these areas apply to libraries and legal information management. As Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in Information and Communications Technologies in Fall of 2019, she taught United States Privacy Law at the University of Helsinki and researched aspects of European Union data protection law. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of Privacy Forum. Her leadership in the law librarianship profession was recognized in 2019 with the Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship from the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) section on Academic Law Libraries. In 2012 she received the AALL Distinguished Lecturer Award in 2012 for her work in privacy law and policy relating to libraries.

The AALS award will be presented to Professor Klinefelter next month at the AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego.

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AALS LWRR Section Award

The Association of American Law Schools' Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research announced that its 2023 Section Award Winner is Laura Graham of the Wake Forest University School of Law.

Laura Graham has been teaching Legal Analysis, Writing, & Research and Appellate Advocacy at Wake Forest since 1999. Her research and speaking interests center on how to maximize beginning law students' early success in legal writing. She is a regular contributor to various state and national bar journals, where she provides writing refreshers for practicing attorneys. Prior to joining the faculty, Laura served as judicial clerk for Judge Ralph Walker of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and was in private practice in Jacksonville, North Carolina, specializing in domestic law and appellate practice. 

The AALS Section Award will be presented next month at the AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego. Members of the AALS Section Award Committee were:

• Co-Chair – Michelle Zakarin, Touro              
• Co-Chair – Whitney Heard, Houston             
• Candace Centeno, Villanova                          
• DeLeith Duke Gossett, Texas Tech                
• Wendy-Adele Humphrey, Texas Tech           
• N.E. Millar, Widener                                      
• Myra Orlen, Western New England               
• Sara Ricks, Rutgers                                        
• Sandra Simpson, Gonzaga                              
• Kristen Tiscione, Georgetown                        
• Maureen Van Neste, Boston College             

Hat tip to AALS LWRR Section Chair Lori D. Johnson, UNLV

(mew)

Nominations for the Tushnet Prize for Best Article on Comparative Law

AALS Section on Comparative Law 

Mark Tushnet Prize in Comparative Law 

Call for Nominations

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Comparative Law seeks nominations of scholarly articles for the “Mark Tushnet Prize” to recognize scholarly excellence in any subject of comparative law by an untenured scholar at an AALS Member School.

The Prize will be given to the author(s) of a scholarly article judged to have made an important contribution in the field of comparative law. This article must have been published in an academic journal between July 2021 and November 2022.

The Prize was awarded for the first time at the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting. All untenured scholars—including but not limited to tenure-track professors, visiting assistant professors, lecturers, academic fellows, doctoral candidates—are eligible.

Nominations for the 2023 Tushnet Prize should be sent by email to Professor Mark E. Wojcik at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law [mwojcik@uic.edu] no later than November 30, 2022. Nominations should include the full name, institutional affiliation, and contact information for the nominated scholar, as well as a citation for the article. A PDF version of the published article would also be appreciated. Self-nominations are welcomed.

For all questions, please contact Professor Mark Wojcik [mwojcik@uic.edu or 312-987-2391], Chair of the AALS Section on Comparative Law.

About Mark Tushnet 

Mark Tushnet, a former president of the Association of American Law Schools, is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A former law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, Tushnet is an authoritative voice in constitutional law and theory. His scholarship spans all areas of public law, including comparative constitutional law, a field in which he has co-authored a leading casebook. A respected teacher, a devoted mentor, and an influential scholar, he retired from the Harvard faculty in June 2020.

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Best of the Best: How to Submit Your Law School's Winning Brief for a Scribes Brief-Writing Award

Did your school win a best-brief award last year?

Here's a final reminder that Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers--is now accepting submissions for the 2022 Brief-Writing Award. The deadline for submitting briefs is October 3, 2022.

Scribes launched its Brief-Writing Award in 1996 to recognize and celebrate excellent student-written briefs. Scribes believes that legal writing is of paramount importance to law students and their careers, and it hopes to encourage good legal writing by recognizing its finest examples.

The Scribes Brief-Writing Award for 2022 considers submissions of moot-court briefs that have won first place in a national or regional moot-court competition during the 2021-22 academic year (August 2021 to June 2022). The award committee then selects the best briefs from all of the winning briefs submitted.

Scribes has opened nominations for its 2022 Brief-Writing Award and will accept nominations until October 3, 2022. The award committee will consider briefs from the 2021-2022 academic year. The award winners will be announced early next year. 

Instructions for submitting a brief for the Scribes competition:

1.      By October 3, 2022, email an electronic copy of the winning brief to scribeslegalwriters@gmail.com.  

2.     The subject line of the email should indicate that it’s a Scribes brief nomination from “___ Law School" (the students’ law school, not a sponsoring law school).

3.     The body of the e-mail must include the following information:

• Name of the competition
• Place where the brief was named best brief (e.g., “finals,” “SW regional”)
• Names of the students who wrote the brief
• Students’ school
• Name of the students’ coach or advisor, if any

4.     The brief itself cannot include any information that identifies the student authors or their school. Please check the cover page, signature pages, and headers or footers.

5.     Submit the brief as a PDF file if possible, although we will accept Word format if necessary.

6.     The brief should be submitted as a single file.

Please contact Scribes Executive Director Philip Johnson at scribeslegalwriters@gmail.com if you have any questions about submitting a brief for the competition.

Mark E. Wojcik, Immediate Past President, Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers

Loyola Los Angeles is Hiring

LMU LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL invites applications for a full-time position of Director of Academic Success to lead Loyola Law School’s Academic Success Program (ASP), which helps JD students, especially those who are struggling academically, succeed in law school and graduate. The Director of Academic Success reports to the Associate Dean for Faculty and collaborates with various departments and directors, including the Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion and the Director of Bar Programs, as well as the faculty who teach in the Program. Responsibilities of the Director of Academic Success include:

• Providing academic support and counseling to ASP students and students who are at academic risk on a range of issues including law school skills, academic policies, graduation requirements, and course planning. 
• Developing and implementing academic success programming, including but not limited to workshops for 1Ls on law school skills and individual or group meetings with ASP students and students who are at academic risk to help them improve their academic performance. 
• Teaching and coordinating the curriculum for Loyola’s one-semester, 3-unit Law & Process course, which teaches legal analysis, examination, and practice skills in the context of the study of privacy torts and is designed to build law school and bar examination skills. Law & Process faculty collaborate to ensure a uniform core curriculum and assessment approach but retain substantial academic freedom to develop and teach their own classes. Depending on the interest of the candidate and needs of the law school, the teaching package could also include teaching Legal Research and Writing (LRW), a 4-unit year-long course that introduces 1Ls to legal research, writing, and analysis.  
• Teaching in Loyola’s three-week Summer Institute Program, which is an academic program during the summer for approximately 40 incoming students that builds essential law school skills (i.e., legal reasoning, analytical skills, and writing skills) and develops a sense of community among students and faculty. 
• Collecting and analyzing data and developing reports regarding the academic performance of ASP students including assessing student performance, effectiveness of academic interventions, and graduation and retention rates.  
• Developing a comprehensive communication strategy to inform JD students about ASP workshops, resources, counseling, and requirements, including developing and maintaining content for the ASP webpage.
  

Minimum Qualifications  

• JD from an ABA-accredited law school and admission to a state bar. 
• Three to five years of practice and/or teaching experience. 
• Ability to handle confidential information, exhibit good judgment, communicate clearly and effectively, and work collaboratively with a diverse community of students, faculty, staff, and external audiences. 
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. 
• Ability to manage multiple competing priorities and meet deadlines. 

Salary and rank are commensurate with experience.   

 

Applicants should submit a cover letter indicating an interest in the position, curriculum vitae, diversity statement, the names of three references, a writing sample, and any teaching evaluations from the last two years via this link.  Applications should be submitted by October 16, 2022, but applications will be accepted and reviewed after that date until the position is filled.  They hope to make hiring decisions by the end of 2022.

 

UIC Law Student Chapter of Scribes

Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers--is an organization with individual and institutional memberships. Some of the law schools that are institutional members also have law student chapters of Scribes.

One of the larger and more active student chapters of Scribes is the one at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. The new officers for 2022-2023 are:

• Carly Strand, President
• Allie Magee, Vice President
• Abbey Schneff, Secretary
• Jack Waanders, Student Outreach

President Strand follows Co-Presidents Denise Luna and Garrett Lee Walker, who, in turn, followed the previous president, Anthony Gasper.

The UIC Law Student Chapter of Scribes is planning student events for the coming academic year. Previous speakers at their meetings included Justice Mary Jane Theis, who was just named as the next Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.

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Western Regional Legal Writing Conference

The University of Oregon School of Law will host the Western Regional Legal Writing Conference on October 7-8, 2022.

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Just Published! The Scribes Manual for Law Review Editors

Hundreds of law reviews are published in the United States, with every accredited law school hosting at least one law review or journal. These publications are not widely read but instead serve a targeted audience of academics, policymakers, lawyers, judges, and students interested in the subject matter of a particular article. Even if the number of readers of a specific article is not large, that article may prove to be the catalyst for a change in the law. Not every article will have such an impact, of course, but publication of an article in a law review allows new ideas to grow.

The potential power of law reviews to effect change is curious, however, because most of those law reviews are edited by law students rather than experienced editors. 

So if you’re a law review editor or you aspire to be one, or if you’re a faculty advisor to a law review, this is the book you’ve been waiting for.

Scribes—The American Society of Legal Writers—has just released The Scribes Manual for Law Review Editors.

The book, published this month by Carolina Academic Press, was edited by two self-confessed “law review nerds,” Dean Darby Dickerson and Professor Brooke J. Bowman. Dean Dickerson is the President and Dean of Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles; she’s also a Past President of Scribes and a Past President of the Association of American Law Schools. Professor Bowman teaches legal research and writing at Stetson University College of Law; she’s also served on several editorial boards and chairs the Scribes Law Review Award Committee.

How did this book come about? An organization known as the National Conference of Law Reviews (NCLR) previously held annual conferences to train incoming law review editors, but those haven’t been held since 2017. The NCLR essentially evaporated as an organization, leaving a tremendous void in preparing incoming law review editors.

Scribes stepped in to fill that void with this wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, comprehensive manual for law review editors. At 323 pages, this volume is “the definitive source for student-editors who seek to excel in their positions and improve their journals.” It contains the wisdom and advice of law professors and law librarians who have worked with law review editors for many years. Together they cover almost every aspect of producing a law review.

The full list of 19 chapters and chapter authors reveals how comprehensive the book is:

1. Why Law Reviews Exist, by Maureen B. Collins (University of Illinois Chicago School of Law)
2. Law Review as an Academic Activity, by Pamela Wilkins (Mercer University School of Law)
3. The Business of Law Reviews, by Darby Dickerson (Southwestern Law School)
4. Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Practices for the Law Review and Legal Scholarship, by Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb (University of Illinois Chicago School of Law)
5. Understanding Philosophical Movements Law Review Editors May Encounter, Kristen David Adams (Stetson University College of Law)
6. Working with Law Librarians, by Andrew W. Lang (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School Biddle Law Library) and Annalee Hickman Pierson (Brigham Young University Howard W. Hunter Law Library)
7. Common Editorial Positions and the Selection of Editors, by Lindsey Gustafson (University of Arkansas at Little Rock William S. Bowen School of Law)
8. Effective Editorial Board Transitions, by Austin Martin Williams (Mercer University School of Law)
9. Leadership Styles for Law Review Editors, by Ashley R. Hilliard (North Carolina Central University School of Law)
10. Selecting Journal Candidates, by Wes E. Henricksen (Barry University Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law)
11. Orientation and Training for Editors, New Staff Members, and Returning Staff Members, by Carolyn V. Williams (University of North Dakota School of Law)
12. Working with Student Authors, Kristen E. Murray (Temple University Beasley School of Law) and Jessica Lynn Wherry (Georgetown Law)
13. Author Relations, by Mark Cooney (Western Michigan University Cooley Law School)
14. The Editing Process, by Michael J. Higdon (University of Tennessee College of Law)
15. Journal Production and Dissemination, by Brent Domann (Michigan State University College of Law)
16. Post-Production Consequences, by Christina Anna George (Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Chutick Law Library)
17. Managing Copyright Issues for Law Reviews, by Benjamin J. Keele (Indiana University McKinney School of Law Ruth Lilly Law Library)
18. Policies for Law Reviews on Archiving Internet Sources, by Clanitra Stewart Nejdl (Vanderbilt Law School Alyne Queener Masey Law Library)
19. The Editorial Adventure, Brooke J. Bowman (Stetson University College of Law)

Susan Hanley Duncan, Dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law and the 2020-2022 President of Scribes, also contributed a preface to the volume.

Each of the 19 chapters starts with “Learning Objectives” to tell readers what they’ll learn in that chapter. And each chapter ends with “Key Takeaways” of the main points covered in that chapter.

This book should not just be in the office of every law review but in the hands of every law review editor. It will inspire them to improve their journals and remind them of the importance of their work. Parts of the book will also encourage editorial boards and faculty advisors to expand access to journal editorial boards and to publish authors whose voices may not otherwise be heard.

There hasn’t been a book like this before, a book to help students understand and appreciate solicitation and editing of articles, leadership and operations of a law journal, academic and personal mentorship of editors and staff, and relationships with authors. 

Click here for information on how to order a copy of the book.

Mark E. Wojcik (mew)

Disclosure: Mark Wojcik is a Past President of Scribes. He was not involved in the preparation of this book. 

Second Draft Invites Submissions

Here's a reminder that you're invited to submit short articles for publication in the fall issue of The Second Draft. Details are below.

Submission Details

Please submit your article in Word format by email on or before September 15, 2022, to theseconddraftlwi@gmail.com.

The subject line of your email and the file name of your Word document should both look like this:  Last Name First Name_Article Submission_Issue Year.

So, for example, my subject line and file name would look like this: Keith Elizabeth_Title of Article_September 2022

The editors encourage all members of the legal writing community to submit articles, and they’d particularly like to encourage new and newer members to submit articles. Submissions are typically 500 to 3000 words and lightly footnoted, but they'll consider pieces of almost any length. 

Hat tip to Professor Elizabeth A. Keith at the American University Washington College of Law

(mew)

Best of the Best: How to Submit Your Law School's Winning Brief for a Scribes Brief-Writing Award

Did your school win a best-brief award last year?

Here's a reminder that Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers--is now accepting submissions for the 2022 Brief-Writing Award. The deadline for submitting briefs is October 3, 2022.

Scribes launched its Brief-Writing Award in 1996 to recognize and celebrate excellent student-written briefs. Scribes believes that legal writing is of paramount importance to law students and their careers, and it hopes to encourage good legal writing by recognizing its finest examples.

The Scribes Brief-Writing Award for 2022 considers submissions of moot-court briefs that have won first place in a national or regional moot-court competition during the 2021-22 academic year (August 2021 to June 2022). The award committee then selects the best briefs from all of the winning briefs submitted.

Scribes has opened nominations for its 2022 Brief-Writing Award and will accept nominations until October 3, 2022. The award committee will consider briefs from the 2021-2022 academic year. The award winners will be announced early next year. 

Instructions for submitting a brief for the Scribes competition:

1.      By October 3, 2022, email an electronic copy of the winning brief to scribeslegalwriters@gmail.com.  

2.     The subject line of the email should indicate that it’s a Scribes brief nomination from “___ Law School" (the students’ law school, not a sponsoring law school).

3.     The body of the e-mail must include the following information:

• Name of the competition
• Place where the brief was named best brief (e.g., “finals,” “SW regional”)
• Names of the students who wrote the brief
• Students’ school
• Name of the students’ coach or advisor, if any

4.     The brief itself cannot include any information that identifies the student authors or their school. Please check the cover page, signature pages, and headers or footers.

5.     Submit the brief as a PDF file if possible, although we will accept Word format if necessary.

6.     The brief should be submitted as a single file.

Please contact Scribes Executive Director Philip Johnson at scribeslegalwriters@gmail.com if you have any questions about submitting a brief for the competition.

Mark E. Wojcik, Immediate Past President, Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers

Michigan State is Hiring

Michigan State Law invites applications from entry-level and lateral candidates a full-time, tenure-track faculty position in health care law and policy with an emphasis on inequities in public and private health care systems. They seek applicants with a commitment to excellence in teaching and scholarly achievement. 

Please email application materials or nominations to Professor Tiffani Darden, Co-Chair of Faculty Appointments Committee, dardent@law.msu.edu. More information about the Law College can be found at www.law.msu.edu.

Hat tip to Catherine M. Grosso.

(mew)