Boston College Law School, Newton, Massachusetts
At Boston College Law School, Legal Reasoning, Research & Writing (LRR&W) is a core course in the first-year curriculum, and is viewed as such by the Law School faculty as a whole. A two-semester, five-credit graded course, LRR&W teaches students a sophisticated methodology for legal problem-solving by integrating the skills of legal analysis, research, and communication. In particular, the course’s contextual, problem-centered approach for teaching legal analysis is specifically designed to complement the teaching of legal analysis in the other courses in the first-year curriculum. Over the course of the year, each student receives extensive individual written and oral feedback on several major writing assignments as well as on interim drafts. Because of this curriculum, Boston law firms report that BCLS students come exceptionally well-prepared to analyze and write about legal problems. While individual professors in the program have autonomy in developing curriculum and choosing teaching methodologies, the program is characterized by collegiality and a very high degree of collaboration. It is also characterized by a process of continual exploration and revision, which in recent years has focused on incorporating technology into the classroom and feedback on written work. This process is encouraged by the stability and continuity of the LRR&W Program, as well as by the strong support of the law school administration, which includes grants for summer research.
The LRR&W program is staffed by a teaching Director, Jane Kent Gionfriddo, who plays a largely facilitative role in administering the program, and five additional full-time professors: Dan Barnett, Joan Blum, Mary Ann Chirba-Martin, Elisabeth Keller, and Judith Tracy. Students are taught in sections of between 40 and 45 students. Professor Gionfriddo has taught in the program for 23 years and administered it for 20. The average service of the five other faculty members is 12 years. Members of the professional library staff, who have law degrees in addition to their graduate degrees in library and information science, co-teach the segments of the curriculum that introduce legal research sources and techniques, and research—both print and on-line—is integrated throughout the year-long curriculum. LRR&W professors, like most faculty members in the Law School’s clinics, are long-term contract members of the faculty who have a form of job security “substantially similar to tenure.” See ABA Standard 405(c). LRR&W professors are well-integrated into the general faculty community. They serve as full members of law school committees and vote at faculty meetings on most issues. Two LRR&W professors have received the University-wide Distinguished Teaching Award, and one professor has received a Law School award for teaching excellence. Three LRR&W professors have served on the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute; Professor Jane Gionfriddo was the Institute’s President from 2000 to 2002. Several members of the Program were co-editors of the Institute’s semi-annual newsletter, The Second Draft, from 1994 to 2000. Since 2001, two LRR&W professors (neither of whom is the Director) served as Chair of the AALS section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research; one was on the Planning Committee for the 2003 AALS Workshop for New Law Teachers and chaired the Planning Committee for the 2003 AALS Workshop for New Teachers of Legal Writing. Members of the LRR&W faculty have also been active in the New England Legal Writing Consortium, a regional organization of legal writing faculty that holds semi-annual meetings on curriculum and pedagogy; one was a founding member. The Law School hosted the December 2001 meeting of the Consortium, which was attended by over 40 participants from 11 law schools, and it is scheduled to host the next meeting in December 2004. Both these meetings were hands-on workshops requiring participants to prepare material beforehand and discuss it with other colleagues in small groups at the conference. Finally, LRR&W professors have done extensive consulting work at other law schools and at many law firms in Massachusetts.
Contact Person: Jane Kent Gionfriddo, Associate Professor and Director of Legal Reasoning, Research & Writing; 617-552-4358
The LRR&W program is staffed by a teaching Director, Jane Kent Gionfriddo, who plays a largely facilitative role in administering the program, and five additional full-time professors: Dan Barnett, Joan Blum, Mary Ann Chirba-Martin, Elisabeth Keller, and Judith Tracy. Students are taught in sections of between 40 and 45 students. Professor Gionfriddo has taught in the program for 23 years and administered it for 20. The average service of the five other faculty members is 12 years. Members of the professional library staff, who have law degrees in addition to their graduate degrees in library and information science, co-teach the segments of the curriculum that introduce legal research sources and techniques, and research—both print and on-line—is integrated throughout the year-long curriculum. LRR&W professors, like most faculty members in the Law School’s clinics, are long-term contract members of the faculty who have a form of job security “substantially similar to tenure.” See ABA Standard 405(c). LRR&W professors are well-integrated into the general faculty community. They serve as full members of law school committees and vote at faculty meetings on most issues. Two LRR&W professors have received the University-wide Distinguished Teaching Award, and one professor has received a Law School award for teaching excellence. Three LRR&W professors have served on the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute; Professor Jane Gionfriddo was the Institute’s President from 2000 to 2002. Several members of the Program were co-editors of the Institute’s semi-annual newsletter, The Second Draft, from 1994 to 2000. Since 2001, two LRR&W professors (neither of whom is the Director) served as Chair of the AALS section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research; one was on the Planning Committee for the 2003 AALS Workshop for New Law Teachers and chaired the Planning Committee for the 2003 AALS Workshop for New Teachers of Legal Writing. Members of the LRR&W faculty have also been active in the New England Legal Writing Consortium, a regional organization of legal writing faculty that holds semi-annual meetings on curriculum and pedagogy; one was a founding member. The Law School hosted the December 2001 meeting of the Consortium, which was attended by over 40 participants from 11 law schools, and it is scheduled to host the next meeting in December 2004. Both these meetings were hands-on workshops requiring participants to prepare material beforehand and discuss it with other colleagues in small groups at the conference. Finally, LRR&W professors have done extensive consulting work at other law schools and at many law firms in Massachusetts.
Contact Person: Jane Kent Gionfriddo, Associate Professor and Director of Legal Reasoning, Research & Writing; 617-552-4358
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