Legal Writing Prof Blog

Congratulations to Wanda Temm

Professor Wanda Temm of the University of Missouri at Kansas City has been awarded the Presidential Faculty Award for Innovative Teaching by the President of the University of Missouri System. One recipient is chosen from over six thousand faculty members in the University of Missouri system. Professor Temm received her bachelor of arts in 1977, graduating summa cum laude from Ottawa University. After receiving her master of science from Purdue University in 1979, Professor Temm was a social worker for six years until she entered the University of Kansas School of Law. She received her J.D. in 1988 after serving as note and comment editor of the Kansas Law Review. Professor Temm was admitted to the Kansas Bar in 1988 and the Missouri Bar in 1989. Prior to joining the faculty in 1991, she practiced with the firm of Shook, Hardy and Bacon specializing in business litigation and appellate practice. Professor Temm is the inaugural recipient of the Eleanore C. Blue Lawyering Skills Professorship, named after the first full-time female faculty member at the University of Kansas City School of Law. She received the 2017 Daniel L. Brenner Faculty Publishing Award for her book, Clearing the Last Hurdle: Mapping Success on the Bar Exam, the leading textbook on bar preparation. Temm received the 2013 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching–UMKC’s highest honor for excellence in teaching for clinical faculty. She also received the 2012 Women’s Justice Legal Scholar Award from Missouri Publishers Media, which recognizes women faculty members who demonstrate leadership, integrity, service, sacrifice and accomplishment in improving the quality of justice and exemplifying the highest ideals of the legal profession. Temm received the 2006 Tiera Farrow Faculty Award for her leadership, dedication, and commitment to improving the position of women in the law. Hat tip to Barbara Wilson. (mew)

Webinar on "Modern Written Advocacy in the Digital Age"

Save the Date!

ABA Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section

Appellate Advocacy Committee Webinar

(Part of the ABA TIPS Seventh Annual Section Conference)

Thursday, April 29, 2021

3:30 PM – 5:00 PM CST	MODERN WRITTEN ADVOCACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE Our courts are getting busier by the day and operating in the age of information bombardment. Judges almost universally report that they are increasingly frustrated with the volumes of written materials they are asked to review. But creative use of technology can be a brief writer’s best friend. This panel will explore effective writing techniques, including clarity, organization, persuasion, as well as formatting and use of graphics, in creating substantive motions and appellate briefs. They will share strategies for writing in a concise manner that quickly gets your point across with impact and advocating in a world where many judges are reading briefs on digital devices, including tablets. Learn how to make your points most effectively in this brave, new, digital world.
MODERATOR:	Mark E. Wojcik, Professor of Law UIC John Marshall Law School, The University of Illinois at Chicago
PANELISTS:	Hon. Robert E. Bacharach, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, Denver, Colorado [author of Legal Writing: A Judge’s Perspective on the Science and Rhetoric of the Written Word] Hon. Louise Dovre Bjorkman, Judge, Minnesota Court of Appeals, St. Paul, Minnesota Hon. Jane B. Stranch, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Cincinnati, Ohio Rocky Dhir, Atlas Legal Research, Dallas, Texas Robert DuBose, Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP, Houston, Texas [author of The Rewired Brain]

Appellate Advocacy Committee of the ABA Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section

Here's a secret for those of you who teach or practice appellate advocacy.

 

The American Bar Association Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section has a committee on Appellate Advocacy. I've been a member of it for several years. At most meetings, I'm often the only law professor attending. I am privy to top-rate advice on appellate advocacy shared in a group of friendly appellate experts. These meetings are less than an hour and easy to attend. At each meeting I learn something from these appellate practitioners that I can use when I teach appellate advocacy.

 

If you're a professor at a U.S. law school you're probably already a member of the ABA from the group membership at your school. And you might already even be a member of the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section. If you're not, that's easy enough to fix. And then it's an easy thing to add your name to the Appellate Advocacy Committee. The return on my small investment of time has been great.

 

Of course the committee is open to lawyers who aren't law professors, so please feel free to search out and join the committee.

 

Mark E. Wojcik (mew)