Boston University School of Law

The First Year Writing Program at Boston University School of Law is a two‑semester, two‑credit graded seminar covering both legal writing and research. The Program Director is a non-tenure track faculty member and has full voting rights at faculty meetings, with the exception of tenure recommendations. In addition, the Director serves as a full voting member of faculty committees. The Instructors are all attorneys with at least two years work experience. For more detailed profiles of the Instructors, please consult http://www.bu.edu/law/jd/writing/instructors.html. Many of the Instructors have taught in the Program for over ten years and turnover averages less that 25 percent annually. Each Instructor works with a Teaching Assistant, a second or third year law student who the Director selects from a pool of applicants. For more on the Teaching Assistant Program, please consult http://www.bu.edu/law/jd/writing/assistants.html. Teaching Assistants receives two credits per semester and attend both the seminar to which he or she is assigned, as well as a biweekly class taught by the Director. The Instructors, however, remain responsible for grading student papers.

The Director designs the basic curriculum for the Program. Its primary emphasis is on writing and on teaching students the importance of language as the tool for lawyers. The Director also supplies many of the teaching materials and conducts two training workshops for the Instructors and Teaching Assistants: a two evening workshop in the summer, and a one evening workshop in the fall. Classes are conducted in small groups of 13 or 14 students. In the first semester, the students receive instruction in legal research, both manually and on-line. In the first semester, students generally receive weekly assignments, including editing exercises, research finding exercises and office memoranda. For examples of these assignments, please consult http://www.bu.edu/law/jd/writing/assignments.htm. In the second semester, students prepare a moot court appellate brief and oral argument, an agreement, a complaint, a client letter and a trial brief. For most assignments, the students prepare two drafts of their papers. The Instructors and the Director share the responsibility for developing these assignments.

For additional information, contact Professor Robert Volk, Director, First Year Research and Writing Program, at rvolk@bu.edu.