Legal Writing Prof Blog

Alabama is Hiring

The University of Alabama School of Law is seeking to hire an Assistant Professor of Legal Writing. The non-tenure earning position will be on a contract basis with an initial three-year term, with possible additional three-year terms. The successful applicant must demonstrate a strong commitment to contribute to the further growth, development, and improvement of the legal writing program. The Legal Writing faculty have a director. The successful candidate will be expected to collaborate on teaching strategies and share core assignments, but faculty members select and develop their own teaching materials and lessons.

 

Applicants must have a law degree from an ABA-accredited law school and a strong academic record. Applicants must demonstrate effective legal writing skills and should be admitted to and in good standing with a state bar. Preference will be given to applicants with four or more years of legal experience and to applicants with teaching experience. Applicants will teach in the first-year program and will also be expected to develop an upper-level writing or drafting course.

 

All applicants must apply for this position through the University of Alabama’s job board at http://facultyjobs.ua.edu/postings. Applications must include a resume, cover letter, list of three references, and a writing sample. Applications will be received until the position is filled, but preference will be given to applications received by March 22, 2020.

 

Hat tip to Professor Anita Kay Head at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa.

 

(mew) 

Colorado to Host Conference on Women's Enfranchisement

The University of Colorado Law School’s Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law will host the 2020 Ira C. Rothgerber Jr. Conference on Constitutional Law on Friday, April 3, 2020, on the topic:  “Women’s Enfranchisement: Beyond the 19^th Amendment.”  2020 marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment, formally extending suffrage to some, but not all, women. But barriers to both political rights and social, lived equality persist, particularly for women at the intersections of race, gender identity, sexuality, and class.  The conference, featuring exciting discussion among diverse scholars and lawyers, will use the centennial to take stock of how far we’ve come and how far we have to go in terms of formal political enfranchisement as well as the social and economic empowerment of women more broadly.  The conference is free and breakfast and lunch will be served to attendees.  Please register here by March 30.

Location: Wittemyer Courtroom | Wolf Law Building (2450 Kittredge Loop Dr, Boulder, CO 80305)

Time: Friday, April 3, 2020 |8:30 am-5:00 pm

Speakers include: 

·       Keynote: Reva Siegel (Yale Law)  

·       Facilitation:  Suzette Malveaux (Colorado Law)

·       Panelists: 

o   Carolyn Ramsey (Colorado Law) 

o   Julie Suk (CUNY) 

o   Mary Ziegler (FSU Law) 

o   Susan Schulten (University of Denver) 

o   Dara Strolovitch (Princeton) 

o   Atiba Ellis (Marquette Law) 

o   Bertrall Ross (Berkeley Law) 

o   Justin Levitt (Loyola Law) 

o   Ming H. Chen (Colorado Law) 

o   Aya Gruber (Colorado Law) 

o   Chinyere Ezie (Center for Constitutional Rights) 

o   Diana Flynn (Lambda Legal) 

o   Cary Franklin (UTexas Law) 

o   Scott Skinner-Thompson (Colorado Law). 

 

Hat tip to Prof. Scott Skinner-Thompson, University of Colorado Law School

 

(mew)

Grants for Research in Negotiation and Conflict Management

Indisputably, the blog for Dispute Resolution Professors, shared news that the Negotiation and Team Resources Organization has announced a grants program to promote the cross-fertilization of research, teaching, and expertise in the area of negotiation and conflict management.  The application deadline is April 20, 2020.  Grants will be awarded by June 15, 2020. 

 

Click here for more information about the grant, the application process, and to see what was funded last year.

 

(mew)

Mitchell Hamline Hires Anthony Niedwiecki as Its Next President and Dean

Mitchell Hamline School of Law today announced the appointment of Anthony S. Niedwiecki, dean and professor of law at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, as the school’s new president and dean.

Niedwiecki, who has led Golden Gate since July 2017, will begin his duties at Mitchell Hamline on July 1, 2020.

Anthony Niedwiecki

“We are thrilled to have Anthony Niedwiecki leading Mitchell Hamline,” said Lisa A. Gray, chair of the school’s board of trustees. “He emerged as the leading candidate from an exceptionally qualified pool of candidates from across the country. His extensive experience in areas crucial to our mission—including experiential education, skills integration, and distance learning—make him the perfect choice to lead us forward.”

Niedwiecki has spent 25 years working in the law. He started as an associate at two firms in Texas before moving into legal education in 1998, holding faculty positions at both Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia and Arizona State University School of Law.

In 2003, he joined Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., becoming a full professor in 2010 and serving as director of the Lawyering Skills and Values Program. He spent the next seven years at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago—an independent school like Mitchell Hamline—serving as associate dean for Skills, Experiential Learning, and Assessment as well as for Academic Affairs, and directing the Lawyer Skills Program. The John Marshall Law School became UIC John Marshall Law School last year when the school merged with the University of Illinois at Chicago.

As dean at Golden Gate the past three years, Niedwiecki oversaw improvements in academic achievement, increased student diversity, and improved financial performance. He also expanded the number of online courses for J.D. students and began developing a new partially online J.D. program. Mitchell Hamline is a recognized pioneer in online legal education, having created the nation’s first hybrid online/on-campus J.D. program at an ABA-approved law school in 2015 and launching the latest evolution of that program—a comprehensive, highly customizable blended-learning enrollment option—in fall 2020.

“I am extremely excited to come to Mitchell Hamline and build upon its legacy of access and opportunity,” Niedwiecki said of his appointment. “Mitchell Hamline matches both my personal values and my ideas for what the next steps in legal education should be. I look forward to leading a law school that has always been at the forefront of innovative learning, like its first-in-the-nation hybrid J.D. program, and sharing my own unique vision of preparing students for an ever-changing legal profession.”

In addition to his work in the law, Niedwiecki has a strong record of public and community leadership, including service as city commissioner and vice mayor of Oakland Park, Fla., as well as a member of the Broward County, Fla., Resource Recovery and Human Rights boards. In 2007, he founded Fight OUT Loud, an organization dedicated to helping people counter discrimination and hate directed at the LGBT community, and he continues to serve as vice president. He has received numerous awards for his advocacy on LGBT issues, including being recognized in 2018 as one of the “Outstanding LGBTQ Leaders in the Bay Area” by San Francisco Business Times magazine.

Niedwiecki, a native of Michigan and the first member of his family to attend college, earned a bachelor’s degree in math and education from Wayne State University in Detroit, and he began his career as a high school and community college math teacher in North Carolina. He earned a J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane Law School in New Orleans and an LL.M. in Legal Education from Temple University Beasley School of Law. He returns to the Midwest with his husband of 18 years, Waymon Hudson, and their two dogs, Lily and Petunia.

Niedwiecki will serve as the second president and dean of Mitchell Hamline School of Law, which was created in 2015 with the combination of William Mitchell College of Law and Hamline University School of Law. Mark C. Gordon served as president and dean from 2015-19 and remains on the faculty. Peter B. Knapp began serving as interim dean in 2019 and will return to the faculty in July.

(Adapted from a press release from Mitchell Hamline School of Law)

(mew)

CFP: SALT Teaching Conference at Loyola Chicago

Here's a reminder that the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) will hold its 2020 SALT Teaching Conference on September 25–26, 2020 at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. The Conference, Social Justice in Action, will provide opportunities to engage in broad, substantive, and innovative discussions on the roles that the legal academy and the profession can and should take to prepare our students to address the social injustices of our time. 
 
Call for Proposals --  The CFP is available on Google Drive by clicking here.  

Please submit proposals via email to [email protected] by June 1, 2020. Given the many different areas of law that intersect with social justice and the myriad of settings in which lawyers practice, we encourage submissions that address a range of topics. 
 
Hat tip to the 2020 SALT Teaching Conference Committee

(mew)

Dean David R. Cleveland Chosen for LWI 2020 Courage Award

The Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) announced that Dean David R. Cleveland is the recipient of the 2020 Terri LeClercq Courage Award. He is the Dean and a Professor of Law at Valparaiso University Law School in Valparaiso, Indiana.

The LWI Courage Award was created by Dr. Terri LeClercq to honor courageous legal writing professors. With this award, LWI seeks to honor members who have demonstrated courage by doing, despite fear, something that most people would not do.

The LWI announcement of the award stated that by any measure, Dean Cleveland has exhibited the courage this award is meant to honor. He has shown great courage as the dean at Valparaiso Law School as it faced severe and ultimately insurmountable financial difficulties. As dean, he consistently advocated for legal writing at Valparaiso and always put students’interests first. The LWI award selection committee agreed with his nominators that his valiant and selfless work on behalf of Valparaiso and its students represents “courage in action.”

Not only has he served as a role model for his courage in action, but Dean Cleveland has also published impassioned scholarship on court reform and appellate justice. This work qualifies as “civil courage” as described in the Call for Nominations. He is thus an authoritative, respected, and dedicated voice for our community. We could not be more proud.

The award will be presented this summer at the biennial conference of the Legal Writing Institute, being held this year at Georgetown Law. The award is scheduled to be presented during the opening reception, on Wednesday evening, July 15, 2020.

The LeClercq Courage Award is not presented every year. Dean Cleveland will join a small group of previous recipients:

• 2016: Laurel Oates and Mim Samuel (Seattle University School of Law)
• 2009: Terry Phelps (American University Washington College of Law)
• 2007: Ralph Brill (Chicago-Kent) and Molly Lien (The John Marshall Law School)

The LWI Awards Committee includes Co-chairs Greg Johnson and Brenda Gibson, and members Andrew Carter, Lindsey Gustafson, Margaret Hannon, Dana Hill, Mary Nagel, and Suzanne Rowe.

(mew)

UIC John Marshall Law School is Hiring Adjunct Professors in Various Subjects

The University of Illinois at Chicago John Marshall Law School, Chicago’s only public law school, seeks candidates for adjunct faculty positions to teach classes in the Law School’s Juris Doctor, Master of Laws, and Master of Jurisprudence degree programs.

These are part-time positions with modest compensation. While adjunct faculty may not be eligible for many benefits, such as health care, they may still be eligible to participate in the State Universities Retirement System (SURS).

Typically, Adjunct Professors teach one course per academic year. Specific classes and programs for which the Law School anticipates hiring adjunct faculty in the near future are posted at https://go.uic.edu/lawadjuncts.

Adjuncts generally teach experiential classes (including Lawyering Skills and Trial Advocacy) or advanced classes in the Law School’s master’s degree programs (Employee Benefits, Estate Planning, Intellectual Property Law, International Business & Trade Law, Privacy & Technology Law, Real Estate Law, and Tax Law). Experiential classes are normally taught at the Law School in Chicago’s downtown Loop. Classes in the master’s programs may be taught at the Law School or online, and in some instances, adjuncts also develop online classes for additional compensation. Adjuncts are required to participate in orientation and training sessions and to comply with academic and institutional policies. A learning management system is used in both live and online classes to post syllabi and other materials and communicate with students.

Candidates must have a Juris Doctor degree from an ABA-approved law school or its equivalent from a foreign country, at least five years of relevant law practice experience, a record of or potential for excellent teaching, and experience with or willingness to learn the Blackboard learning management system. In addition, admission to a state or foreign bar (or inactive/retired status) is expected for most adjunct faculty positions, and candidates must be in good standing with any bar to which they have been admitted.

For fullest consideration, applicants should submit a resume or curriculum vitae, names of three references familiar with the applicant’s practice or teaching credentials, and a letter of intent identifying specific classes for which the applicant wishes to be considered to http://jobs.uic.edu/job-board/job-details?jobID=129070 by February 28, 2020. (A catalog of the Law School’s classes may be found online at http://jmls.uic.edu/ or https://courses.jmls.edu/.)

 

Applications are considered for particular classes on a rolling basis or as openings arise. An interview (in person, online, or by phone) may be scheduled following an initial screening. Applicants can continue to apply as a confidential review and screening of candidates will continue until positions are filled.

 

The University of Illinois at Chicago is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. Minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. The University of Illinois may conduct background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer. Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

 

(mew)