BROOKLYN LAW SCHOOL

Brooklyn Law School has a highly experienced full-time legal writing faculty and emphasizes individualized attention for each student. The director has tenure, and the faculty is a mix of long-term contracts and uncapped short-term contracts. The writing program receives further support from a full-time writing specialist, a full-time director of academic support, and an English as a Second Language adjunct. Legal writing faculty vote at faculty meetings, serve on committees, and are eligible for summer research stipends. These stipends have enabled the writing faculty to author four legal writing textbooks, Writing and Analysis in the Law (Walter and Fajans (with Shapo) rev. 4th ed. 2003); Scholarly Writing for Law Students (Fajans and Falk, 3d ed. forthcoming 2005); Writing for Law Practice, Fajans and Falk (with Shapo) 2004); and Appellate Advocacy: Principles and Practice (Cary (with Bentele) 4th ed. 2004). The director is a co-author of the Sourcebook on Legal Writing Programs. In addition, faculty members have written articles and presented papers that have influenced thinking in the field on such subjects as critical reading, integrating lawyering and legal writing, and applying linguistic theory to the composition of legal documents. Finally, the faculty has held a number of leadership positions in the field, serving on the AALS Legal Writing Section, the Board of the Legal Writing Institute, the American Bar Association’s Committee on Communication Skills, the Board of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, and the Editorial Board of the Journal of ALWD.

In the program itself, classes are purposely small (a total of 40 students for each full-time writing faculty member) to facilitate opportunities for extensive one-on-one communication. In the mandatory first-year legal writing program, students are exposed to a broad range of skills during the two consecutive semesters of writing: they focus on the fundamentals of legal writing, analysis and research, are introduced to the process of client counseling and draft client opinion letters, and begin to develop the skills of written and oral appellate advocacy. Students have three formal conferences each year and many informal conferences. After the first year, the curriculum includes a wide variety of elective advanced writing courses that enable students to immerse themselves in legal writing. We have offered Fundamentals of Legal Drafting, Advanced Legal Writing, Writing for Law Practice, Appellate Advocacy, and a Scholarly Paper seminar.

Contact person: Marilyn R. Walter, Director of the Writing Program. Marilyn.Walter@brooklaw.edu