Legal Writing Prof Blog

LWI Virtual One-Day Workshop in Tennessee

Congratulations to the University of Tennessee College of Law for hosting today's virtual One-Day Workshop on Innovative Teaching for the Legal Writing Institute.

The presenters today included:

• Harold Heck (University of Tennessee College of Law)
• Anna Hemingway (Widener University Commonwealth Law School)
• Jason Smith (Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law)
• Christine Lofgren (Southwestern School of Law)
• Misti Duvall (Columbia Law School)
• Rodd Barckhoff (University of Tennessee College of Law)
• Paige Kohn (Capital University Law School)
• Mandee Baumer (Penn State Law)
• Michael Higdon (University of Tennessee College of Law)

Hat tip to Rebecca Eshbaugh of the University of Tennessee College of Law.

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Fred Gray Civil Rights Writing Competition

The Fred Gray Civil Rights Writing Competition is a new national writing competition honoring the extraordinary contributions of Fred Gray to the civil rights movement. Fred Gray is a renowned civil rights attorney who played a pivotal role in numerous landmark cases that helped dismantle segregation and advance the cause of racial justice in America. Notably, he represented Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

Texas Tech University School of Law has partnered with The Lanier Law Firm and the Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights to offer this writing competition to law students around the nation. The submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. (CST) on Friday, February 28, 2025.

Law students will be awarded the following monetary prizes for their winning essays: $7,500 (first place), $5,000 (second place), and $2,500 (third place).

For more information about the writing competition, please contact Associate Dean Wendy A. Humphrey at Texas Tech University School of Law.

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Fred Gray Civil Rights Writing Competition

The Fred Gray Civil Rights Writing Competition is a new national writing competition honoring the extraordinary contributions of Fred Gray to the civil rights movement. Fred Gray is a renowned civil rights attorney who played a pivotal role in numerous landmark cases that helped dismantle segregation and advance the cause of racial justice in America. Notably, he represented Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

Texas Tech University School of Law has partnered with The Lanier Law Firm and the Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights to offer this writing competition to law students around the nation. The submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. (CST) on Friday, February 28, 2025.

Law students will be awarded the following monetary prizes for their winning essays: $7,500 (first place), $5,000 (second place), and $2,500 (third place).

For more information about the writing competition, please contact Associate Dean Wendy A. Humphrey at Texas Tech University School of Law.

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New England Legal Writing Conference at Boston University School of Law

It's time to register for the New England Legal Writing Conference, hosted by Boston University School of Law. The conference will take place on Friday, November 22, 2024, and hotel block information and the agenda for the day are on the conference website. The hotel block reservation cutoff date is October 22, 2024.

Presentations and panels from faculty around the United States will consider the theme of "Teaching, Reaching, and Inspiring All Students." Registration is free.

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Widener University Delaware Law School is Hiring and Looking for Visitors

Widener University Delaware Law School, located in Wilmington, Delaware, currently has multiple full-time, tenure-track faculty opportunities available to begin January 1, 2025, or July 1, 2025. Applications for visitors for the upcoming Spring 2025 Semester are also welcome.

They welcome applications from candidates with teaching interests in required and bar-tested courses. The list of courses includes:

• Academic Success
• Civil Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Corporate Law
• Contracts
• Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Evidence
• Legal Research and Writing
• Property Law
• Professional Responsibility
• Torts
• Wills and Trusts

Qualified candidates will have strong academic credentials, including at least a J.D. degree or its equivalent. Candidates should demonstrate evidence of and potential for innovative and impactful teaching, scholarship, and service to the Law School, the University, and the legal profession. They welcome applications from candidates who approach pedagogy and scholarship from a variety of perspectives and methods.

In its sixth decade, Delaware Law School is the oldest and only ABA-accredited law school in the nation’s First State of Delaware. It has civic-minded students and staff and a top-notch faculty featuring some of the most highly regarded teachers, legal scholars, and social change agents in the nation. The large corporate community in Delaware and the varieties of legal practice opportunities in neighboring Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland offer students an unusually rich array of opportunities for experiential learning through internships and externships, a public interest law center, and numerous clinical programs.

Hat tip to Nyla Millar

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Students at DePaul and Elon Win Disability Law Writing Competition

The Adam A. Milani Disability Law Writing Competition is a national disability law writing competition sponsored by the Mercer University School of Law and the ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law. The competition honors the work of the late Professor Adam Milani, a passionate advocate for disability rights, an accomplished legal scholar, and a beloved faculty member at Mercer Law School.

The first-place winner of the 2024 competition is Adam Levinson, DePaul University College of Law.

The second-place winner is Ivey Schofield, Elon University School of Law.

Hat tip to Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne

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Georgetown Law is Hiring

Georgetown Law seeks a full-time faculty member to teach in their first-year Legal Practice program. The position starts July 1, 2025. The faculty member will teach two sections of the first-year course. Each section meets with the professor two hours per week. Professors are responsible for selecting their own texts, designing course materials, assigning student grades, and supervising law fellows. Legal Practice faculty at Georgetown also teach a two-hour weekly seminar with six law fellows, who serve as teaching assistants for the first-year students.

Candidates must have superior academic records and expertise in legal research, writing, and analysis. Three years of professional experience beyond law school and teaching experience is strongly preferred. Applicants should include a letter of interest, a CV, a list of three references, a writing sample, and (for more recent graduates) a law school transcript.

Materials should be submitted via the Georgetown faculty search portal. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis and are due no later than Monday, November 1, 2021. Early submission is strongly recommended.

Hat tip to Michael Cedrone.

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2025 Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition

The 2025 problem for the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is scheduled to be released within the next 24 hours. Click here for more information.

Approximately 700 schools from 100 countries are expected to participate in the Jessup, making it the world's largest moot court competition.

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Dayton is Hiring

The University of Dayton School of Law invites applications for multiple tenure-track Assistant Professor positions to begin August 16, 2025. Areas of need include contracts, business organizations, torts, criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, family law, property, wills and trusts, secured transactions, and tax. Click here for more information.

Hat tip to Daniel Craine.

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Case Western Reserve is Hiring

Case Western Reserve University School of Law is accepting applications for a Lawyering Skills Assistant Professor position beginning July 2025 to teach in its Legal Writing, Leadership, Experiential Education, Advocacy, and Professionalism (“LLEAP”) program. Click here for more information.

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Avoiding the Word Salad Bar

Gregg Hake has some advice for avoiding "word salad," that mixture of unintelligible, incoherent, empty words.

 

The short article has some best practices and exercises for writing and for avoiding word salad, such as watching a movie or reading a magazine article that's more 50 years old to see how writers said things back in the day. Click here to read Word Salad or Le Mot Juste?: How to Speak and Write Better by Gregg Hake (2010).

 

Hat tip to Michael Goldblatt.

 

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The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

The next foreign, international, and comparative law webinar at the Law Library of Congress will be “Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan," on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Please register here.

In this webinar, visiting Professor Ugyen Thinley from the Jigme Signye Wangchuck School of Law in Bhutan will present the idea of Gross National Happiness as a guiding principle for the government reaching back for centuries in Bhutan. The penal code of Bhutan states: "The purpose of the government is to provide happiness to its people. If we cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist." Professor Thinley will discuss how this statement is implemented in Bhutanese legislation while reviewing the history of reflecting happiness in the nation's laws and an overview of the current legal system and legal resources. 

Hat tip to the Law Library of Congress.

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The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

The next foreign, international, and comparative law webinar at the Law Library of Congress will be “Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan," on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Please register here.

In this webinar, visiting Professor Ugyen Thinley from the Jigme Signye Wangchuck School of Law in Bhutan will present the idea of Gross National Happiness as a guiding principle for the government reaching back for centuries in Bhutan. The penal code of Bhutan states: "The purpose of the government is to provide happiness to its people. If we cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist." Professor Thinley will discuss how this statement is implemented in Bhutanese legislation while reviewing the history of reflecting happiness in the nation's laws and an overview of the current legal system and legal resources. 

Hat tip to the Law Library of Congress.

(mew)

The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan

The next foreign, international, and comparative law webinar at the Law Library of Congress will be “Laws on Happiness: The Legal System and Legislation of Bhutan," on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Please register here.

In this webinar, visiting Professor Ugyen Thinley from the Jigme Signye Wangchuck School of Law in Bhutan will present the idea of Gross National Happiness as a guiding principle for the government reaching back for centuries in Bhutan. The penal code of Bhutan states: "The purpose of the government is to provide happiness to its people. If we cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist." Professor Thinley will discuss how this statement is implemented in Bhutanese legislation while reviewing the history of reflecting happiness in the nation's laws and an overview of the current legal system and legal resources. 

Hat tip to the Law Library of Congress.

(mew)

LWI Biennial Conference

Just a reminder that the Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute will take place at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, Indiana, from July 17-20, 2024. Click here for more information.

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Next Year's Jessup Problem

Here is the subject matter of the 2025 problem for the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the world's largest moot court competition:

“The Jessup 2025 Problem will present the following issues: (1) the rights and obligations of other members of the international community when two persons claim to be the legitimate president of a state; (2) invocation of immunity for government officials accused of grave violations of human rights; (3) the legal consequences of receding coastlines for the maritime zones of coastal states; and (4) the interpretation of the compromissory clause in a treaty creating a regional organization.”

Hat tip to Michael Peil and the International Law Students' Association.

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New LWI Board Members Elected

The Legal Writing Institute announced that the following individuals were elected as new Board members:

• Jacob Carpenter (Marquette)
• Lori Johnson (UNLV)
• Kristen Murray (Temple)
• Robert Parrish (Emory)
• Em Wright (Stetson)
• Nancy Soonpaa (Texas Tech)
• Ellie Margolis (Temple)

Hat tip to Abby Perdue, President-Elect, Legal Writing Institute and Professor of Law at Wake Forest University School of Law.

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A New Edition of Plain English for Lawyers

Carolina Academic Press announced that it is about to publish a new edition of Plain English for Lawyers, the classic text originally authored by Richard Wydick and now updated by Amy Sloan. As the CAP website states:

Plain English for Lawyers has been a favorite of law students, legal writing teachers, lawyers, and judges for almost 40 years. The seventh edition, co-authored by Amy Sloan, updates this classic text while preserving all the approaches that make it such a standard in the field. In addition to guiding students through techniques for producing clear writing, this edition includes new exercises, a discussion of the principles of document design, a chapter on the appropriate uses of generative AI for writing, and detailed coverage of best practices for correct pronoun usage and avoiding gendered language. Plain English for Lawyers remains (in size only!) a little book, small enough and palatable enough not to intimidate overloaded law students.

The book can be used as one of your course texts or as a recommended supplement.

Click here for more information about the seventh edition (including how to request an examination copy for your fall syllabus).

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Oklahoma is Hiring

The University of Oklahoma College of Law is hiring an Assistant Professor of Legal Writing to join its LRW faculty beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.

Hat tip to Erin DeWalt.

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Zoom Workshop for New Legal Writing Scholars

On Monday, May 13, 2024, the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law will host an online workshop for new legal writing scholars. You may be a “new” scholar if you’ve published "fewer than two full-length law review articles or book chapters," but the organizers intend this definition of "new" to include rather than exclude participants.

In this Zoom workshop, participants can receive feedback on their work and learn from fellow legal writing scholars. Please come with a draft of any length, of any kind of project (non-law-review articles welcome!), and you’ll leave the day with feedback on your specific project and thoughts from colleagues around the country on how to succeed in academic writing.

Contact Professor Susan McMahon, Professor Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff, or Professor Mary Bowman for more information (they're all at ASU).

Hat tip to Susan A. McMahon

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