American University, Washington College of Law

Curriculum:
-Two semester, four credit course
-Legal research, analysis, and writing
-Four major writing assignments, both predictive and persuasive
-Several smaller assignments including a plain language translation, an academic court-observation piece, and oral advocacy
-Conferencing during the drafting process with instructor and with teaching assistant
-Collaborative team assignments (both research and writing) throughout the semester
-Two collaborative partner assignments

Faculty/Status:
-Mixed full-time and adjunct program
-Director (tenured), Associate Director and Academic Coordinator (long-term contracts) and two full-time instructors (long-term contracts)
-About 50% taught by full-time, in approximately 1:22 ratio
-About 50% taught by adjuncts, in approximately 1:11 ratio
-Some adjuncts have taught for over ten years, and the last three full-time hires were former adjuncts in the program
-Other courses taught by full-time faculty: Criminal Law, Employment Law, Advanced Lawyering
-Full-time faculty are members of (and have chaired) faculty committees
-Summer research stipends and research assistants granted to all full-time faculty
-Recent publications include: Penelope Pether, Inequitable Injunctions: The Scandal of Private Judging in the U.S. Courts, 56 Stanford Law Review 1435 (2004), and Nancy Modesitt, Whistleblowing: The Law of Retaliatory Discharge (2d ed. 2004)(co-authored with Daniel P. Westaman).

Contact:
mjanderson@wcl.american.edu

Website:
http://wcl.american.edu/legalrhetoric/