Legal Writing Prof Blog

CFP: AALS Annual Meeting (Section on Defamation and Privacy Law)

The Association of American Law Schools' Section on Defamation and Privacy welcomes submissions on any topic relating to social media, free speech, and content moderation, including recent proposals to reform platform immunity under Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, calls for transparency as to online censorship by platforms, concerns about hindering innovation, or other issues surrounding social media and free speech.

Please email submissions to Agnieszka McPeak, [email protected], by Friday, September 13th. Include your name, institution, and a copy of your work with your email. While submissions have no length requirements, full drafts may be given preference over abstracts or outlines. The author(s) of the paper chosen from this Call for Papers will be invited to participate on the AALS Defamation & Privacy Law panel taking place in Washington, D.C. at the AALS Annual Meeting on Thursday, January 2nd from 3:30-5:15pm (this panel is co-sponsored by the Sections on Internet & Computer Law and Communication, Information, & Media Law). Selections will be announced no later than September 27th.

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Wake Forest is Hiring

Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, North Carolina anticipates hiring a tenure-track Legal Analysis, Writing, & Research (LAWR) Professor to begin in 2020-2021. The Faculty Appointments Committee seeks applications from (1) entry-level candidates with excellent academic records and demonstrated potential for exceptional teaching and scholarly achievement, and (2) lateral candidates with outstanding academic credentials, including demonstrated teaching ability and a record of distinguished scholarship.

In Wake Forest’s LAWR program, professors teach one section of approximately 20 students for LAWR 1 and 2 for the full academic year, and one section of approximately 20-26 students for LAWR 3 for one semester.

In addition to teaching, scholarship is expected. LAWR professors receive significant support for research, scholarship, and professional development. Salary, benefits, and research support are nationally competitive. LAWR professors are involved in all aspects of law school life, including chairing and serving on faculty committees and serving as advisors to students and student organizations.

Applicants must have a law degree; a long-term commitment to teaching LAWR; an interest in scholarship; excellent legal research, analysis, reasoning, writing, and communication skills; and the ability to work both independently and cooperatively. Prior teaching experience is preferred, and legal practice experience is required. The law school will participate in the AALS Recruitment Conference in Washington, D.C. October 3-5, 2019.

Technical questions regarding the application process should be addressed to [email protected] or by calling 336-758-4700 and asking for a member of the recruitment team. Questions regarding the position should be addressed to Omari Scott Simmons, Chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee, at [email protected].

The position advertised is a tenure-track appointment and the professor hired will be permitted to vote in faculty meetings. The school anticipates paying an annual academic year base salary between $80,000 and $109,999. LAWR professors typically teach three courses each year, each with approximately 20 students.

Hat tip to Prof. Laura P. Graham

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Congratulations, Dr. Dennis!

Professor Johanna K.P. Dennis, the Associate Director of Legal Writing at Golden Gate University School of Law, received her PhD in Educational Leadership this summer from Trident University. She wrote her dissertation on The Effect of Access to In-State Tuition Subsidy After Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on Tertiary Education Enrollment.

Before joining the faculty at GGU, she served on the full-time faculties at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock's Bowen School of Law, Northeastern University School of Law, Southern Illinois University School of Law, Southern University Law Center, Vermont Law School, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, and Florida A&M University College of Law.

Hat tip to Sue LIemer.

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AALS LWRR Section Seeks New Scholars to Present at the AALS Annual Meeting in January

The AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research (“LWRR”) seeks participants in a “New Scholars Showcase” session during the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. 

During this session, three newer scholars who teach legal writing and who have been selected through the competitive process described below, will present their work-in-progress or recently completed article. Each scholar will have approximately 10-12 minutes to present, and the remainder of the session will be spent on questions and comments from the audience. The LWRR Section is seeking participation from both newer scholars and more experienced legal-writing faculty.

A “new scholar” is:

(1) anyone who teaches legal writing and has been in the legal academy for seven years or fewer or anyone who teaches legal writing who within the last seven years has moved into a position or had their position converted to one that requires publication; and

(2) who has a work-in-progress, an article accepted for publication (but not yet published), or an article that has been published since January 1, 2019.

A new scholar who meets the above requirements can apply to present that work at the New Scholars Showcase. That scholarship can be on any topic, using any method, at any level of controversy, and suitable for publication in any scholarly journal.

Applications from newer scholars will be due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, August 30, 2019. Please submit your application by email to Tim Duff, Program Committee Co-Chair, [email protected]. Please include “New Scholars Showcase” in your subject line. Each application should include the following information: (1) the author’s name, school affiliation, and years teaching in the legal academy (and, if applicable, years in position that requires publication); (2) an abstract of the article; (3) the current draft of the article; and (4) an indication of your interest in being matched up with a scholarly mentor. Please use Microsoft Word or the equivalent, but do not use PDF. By submitting an application, you are agreeing that you will appear at AALS in person to present your work. 

The AALS-LWRR Program Committee will then remove the identifying information from each application, review the applications, and select three applicants to present at the New Scholars Showcase session at AALS.  All applicants who indicate an interest will be paired with a mentor, and we anticipate publicizing the other applicants’ scholarship through the session as well to help provide additional opportunities for mentorship and feedback. Applicants are asked to self-anonymize their articles to the extent possible.

More Experienced Legal Writing Faculty Participants

We are also seeking experienced legal-writing faculty to serve as mentors for the applicants. If you are interested in serving as a mentor, please email Tim Duff, Program Committee Co-Chair, [email protected], to indicate your interest by Friday, August 30, 2019. Please include “New Scholars Showcase Mentor” in your subject line. We will contact you once we have received the applications to begin the process of matching applicants with mentors.

Program Committee

• Shailini George (Suffolk) Co-Chair
• Tim Duff (Case Western) Co-Chair
• Mary Garvey Algero (Loyola - New Orleans)
• Susie Salmon (Arizona)
• Dyane O'Leary (Suffolk)
• Abby Patthoff (Chapman)
• Candace Centeno (Villinova)
• Therese Clarke Arado (Northern Illinois)
• Cara Cunningham Warren (Detroit Mercy)
• Alyssa Dragnich (Arizona State)
• Scott Fraley (Baylor) EC Liaison

(mew)

 

Golden Gate is Hiring

Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco is looking for an Associate Director of Bar Performance & Assessment and an Associate Director of Academic Achievement – both are full-time, staff positions. At GGU, academic support (managed by Reichi Lee) and bar services (managed by Rana Boujaoude) are separate programs that work closely together.

https://www.paycomonline.net/v4/ats/web.php/jobs/ViewJobDetails?job=23461&clientkey=1A449B35167BB40706C055A54E4FB0DA

https://www.paycomonline.net/v4/ats/web.php/jobs/ViewJobDetails?job=23459&clientkey=1A449B35167BB40706C055A54E4FB0DA

Hat tip to Fiona L. McKenna

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Duke is Hiring for July 2020

Duke Law School invites applications for a full-time instructor to teach in its JD writing program beginning July 1, 2020. The candidate hired will teach one section of Duke’s required, first-year course, Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing, and one upper-level writing seminar.  

LARW is a graded, two-semester, four-credit course. LARW sections have no more than 30 students (in recent years the norm has been 26-28). Upper-level writing seminars have generally been two-credit, simulation-based courses offering significant practical experience. Their enrollment is capped at 14.  Candidates are encouraged to think creatively in designing an upper-level seminar of their own.

Candidates must have superior academic records and at least four years of experience in practice (which may include clerking). Teaching experience is also preferred and candidates with significant transactional practice experience are especially encouraged to apply.

To apply, please submit a cover letter, resume, writing sample, and a list of at least three references by October 1, 2019 through the following link: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/14288.

Address applications to Jeremy Mullem, Director of Legal Writing. Questions about the position may be directed to Jeremy Mullem at [email protected].

Duke is committed to encouraging and sustaining work and learning environments that are free from harassment and prohibited discrimination. Duke prohibits discrimination and harassment in the administration of both its employment and educational policies. Duke University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, genetic information, gender, gender expression, gender identity, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or veteran status.  Duke also makes good faith efforts to recruit, hire, and promote qualified women, minorities, individuals with disabilities, and veterans.

The position may lead to successive long-term contracts of five or more years. The professor hired will NOT be allowed to vote in faculty meetings.  The anticipated salary is $70,000 - $79,999.

The professor will teach Legal Analysis, Research and Writing, a year-long, four-credit course, to no more than 30 students.  In addition, the professor will teach one upper-level, writing-focused seminar (likely in the spring of the professor’s first year at Duke).  Upper-level writing seminars have generally been two-credit, simulation-based courses offering significant practical experience.

Hat tip to Jeremy Mullem.

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San Francisco is Hiring

The University of San Francisco School of Law has an opening for an Assistant Director of its Academic and Bar Exam Success Program for the 2019-2020 academic year.  Contact Director Jonathan Chu at [email protected] or Associate Dean Tristin Green at [email protected] for more information.

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North Dakota is Hiring

The University of North Dakota School of Law invites applications for one or more tenure-track positions, to commence August 2020. The selected candidates will likely teach one section of Lawyering Skills (3 credits in the Fall and 2 credits in the Spring) and one upper-level course each semester. The upper-level course package will be determined in consultation with the Dean, taking into account the School of Law’s curricular needs and the candidate’s expertise, experience, and expressed teaching preferences. Please contact Denitsa Mavrova Heinrich at [email protected] or Julia Ernst, Chair of the Faculty Selection Committee, at [email protected] with any questions.

 

Hat tip to Denitsa Mavrova Heinrich.

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UIC John Marshall Law School

The John Marshall Law School of Chicago merged yesterday with the University of Illinois at Chicago. The new name of the institution is UIC John Marshall Law School. The institution is the first (and obviously only) public law school in Chicago.

And although the law school itself did not move, the law school updated its address from 315 S. Plymouth Court to 300 S. State Street. The city and zip code remain the same: Chicago, IL 60604

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Submit Your Winning "Best Brief" for the 2020 Scribes Brief-Writing Award

Scribes--The American Society of Legal Writers--is now accepting submissions for the 2020 Brief-Writing Award. The deadline for submitting briefs is September 15, 2019.

In 1996, Scribes launched a Brief-Writing Award 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 2020 considers submissions of moot-court briefs that have won first place in a national or regional moot-court competition during the 2018-19 academic year (September 2018 to May 2019). The award committee then selects the best briefs from all of the winning briefs submitted.

In 2019, the winners were Caitlin Messinger and Keriann Smith of the Florida State University College of Law in Tallahassee. Their award was presented in April during a Scribes CLE and Award Ceremony at the Law Library of Congress in Washington D.C. (The 2019 award ceremony also included the presentation of the Lifetime-Achievement Award to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, so it was quite a day for those students!) The second-place winners for 2019 were Cesar Escalante and Jonathan Peña of the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas. Two schools tied for third place: Jacob Cunningham, Jessica Finley, and Sara Kuebel won from the Louisiana State University Paul M. Herbert Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Gabriella Gallego and Alyxandra N. Vernon won from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California.

The authors of the 2020 Scribes Brief-Writing Award will be recognized at the Scribes National CLE and Award Program that will be held in Chicago on Friday, April 3, 2020 at the UIC John Marshall Law School. Normally the winning law school has paid the travel expenses of the winning authors to attend the ceremony.

To submit a brief that won a national or regional moot court competition during the 2018-19 academic year, email an electronic pdf of the winning brief to [email protected]. The subject line of the email should indicate that it is a Scribes brief nomination from "____" Law School (the student's law school, not the school that hosted the moot court competition). The body of the email should set forth the name of the competition, the names of the students who wrote the brief and their school, and the name of the faculty coach or advisor, if any. The pdf (or Word) copy of the winning brief cannot include any information that identifies the student authors or their school. Please check the cover page, signature pages, and headers and footers.

Please contact Scribes Executive Director Philip Johnson at [email protected] if you have any questions about submitting a brief for the competition.

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

AALS LWRR Section Seeks New Scholars to Present at the AALS Annual Meeting in January

The Association of American Law Schools' Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research (“AALS-LWRR”) seeks participants in a “New Scholars Showcase” session during the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. in January.

During this session, three newer scholars who teach legal writing and who have been selected through the competitive process described below, will present their work-in-progress or recently completed article. Each scholar will have approximately 10-12 minutes to present, and the remainder of the session will be spent on questions and comments from the audience. The LWRR Section is seeking participation from both newer scholars and more experienced legal-writing faculty.

A “new scholar” is:

1. anyone who teaches legal writing and has been in the legal academy for seven years or fewer or anyone who teaches legal writing who within the last seven years has moved into a position or had their position converted to one that requires publication; and
2. who has a work-in-progress, an article accepted for publication (but not yet published), or an article that has been published since January 1, 2019.

A new scholar who meets the above requirements can apply to present that work at the New Scholars Showcase. That scholarship can be on any topic, using any method, at any level of controversy, and suitable for publication in any scholarly journal.

Applications from newer scholars will be due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, August 30, 2019. Please submit your application by email to Tim Duff, Program Committee Co-Chair, [email protected]. Please include “New Scholars Showcase” in your subject line. Each application should include the following information: (1) the author’s name, school affiliation, and years teaching in the legal academy (and, if applicable, years in position that requires publication); (2) an abstract of the article; (3) the current draft of the article; and (4) an indication of your interest in being matched up with a scholarly mentor. Please use Microsoft Word or the equivalent, but do not use PDF. By submitting an application, you are agreeing that you will appear at AALS in person to present your work.

The LWRR Program Committee will then remove the identifying information from each application, review the applications, and select three applicants to present at the New Scholars Showcase session at AALS. All applicants who indicate an interest will be paired with a mentor, and we anticipate publicizing the other applicants’ scholarship through the session as well to help provide additional opportunities for mentorship and feedback. Applicants are asked to self-anonymize their articles to the extent possible.

More Experienced Legal Writing Faculty Participants

The AALS LWRR is also seeking experienced legal-writing faculty to serve as mentors for the applicants. If you are interested in serving as a mentor, please email Tim Duff, Program Committee Co-Chair, [email protected], to indicate your interest by Friday, August 30, 2019. Please include “New Scholars Showcase Mentor” in your subject line. We will contact you once we have received the applications to begin the process of matching applicants with mentors.

Program Committee

• Shailini George (Suffolk) Co-Chair
• Tim Duff (Case Western) Co-Chair
• Mary Garvey Algero (Loyola - New Orleans)
• Susie Salmon (Arizona)
• Dyane O'Leary (Suffolk)
• Abby Patthoff (Chapman)
• Candace Centeno (Villinova)
• Therese Clarke Arado (Northern Illinois)
• Cara Cunningham Warren (Detroit Mercy)
• Alyssa Dragnich (Arizona State)
• Scott Fraley (Baylor) Section Executive Committee Liaison

(mew)

Florida is Hiring

The University of Florida Levin College of Law in Gainesville, Florida, is hiring two new legal skills faculty. One position is to teach legal writing and other skills courses (https://apply.interfolio.com/66252). The other is to teach in the school's Veteran’s Assistance Clinic https://apply.interfolio.com/66253. 

Hat tip to Associate Dean Silvia Menendez, the Associate Dean for Experiential Learning & Senior Legal Skills Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law

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