THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI

First-year law students at the University of Mississippi take six hours of legal research and writing over two semesters.
· The first semester focuses on objective analysis and writing. Students draft two objective memoranda. A significant portion of the class time is spent revising and editing student drafts of memorandum segments. This is done in small student groups and with the whole class. Students submit a first draft for review, meet with their professors to discuss the critiques of their papers, and then submit a rewrite to be graded. The second memorandum is submitted for a grade without the benefit of a rewrite (though students rewrite one issue of the second memorandum during the second semester.)
o The average class size for the writing component of the class is 43 students. Four full time legal research and writing professors teach this component. Although they do not have long-term contracts, with the exception of adding professors, there has been no turnover during the past three years and there is no expectation of turnover during the immediate future. LRW professors can attend faculty meetings (but not vote), serve on committees (but not vote), and teach doctrinal courses. Three of the four LRW professors possess significant legal experience. The director was a partner in a commercial litigation boutique, and founded and was the first executive director of a state public defender’s office providing post-conviction representation to death row inmates. Another professor worked in legal services for many years and then started a private practice. A third has worked in a firm and then founded a new one providing intellectual property and contract advice to musicians and visual artists. Although the fourth professor has no “real world” experience, he has taught legal research and writing in this program for five years.
o The average class size for the research component of the class is 22 students. The classes are taught by two reference librarians and by an adjunct professor. The director of the law library designs this component. The research and writing components of the course are tightly integrated. Reference librarians provide feedback on the research aspects of proposed memoranda topics. Further, front pages of the authorities used to locate the universe of closed memorandum cases are incorporated into the research classes to illustrate the research process.


· During the second semester, the students: rewrite one issue from the open memo of the preceding semester; prepare a client letter regarding one issue in the appellate brief; prepare an appellate brief; keep time sheets documenting the time spent researching and writing the appellate brief; and “reverse engineer” a research problem to illustrate their familiarity with the research process (they are provided a statute, and then must define a legal issue and create a line of secondary and primary authorities leading to the issue’s answer).
· Advanced research is regularly offered. Advanced writing is occasionally offered.
· Students must complete one upper level course with a “significant writing” requirement.

During a recent long-term planning session, tenured faculty identified the following goals for the LRW program:
· Continue to reduce the class size of LRW classes;
· Integrate a first-year doctrinal class with LRW; and
· Expand the advanced research and writing class offerings.
Additionally, the faculty agreed to support “Writing Across the Curriculum” and to study the faculty status of LRW professors.

Address any questions regarding the program to Jack Williams at cjxn@olemiss.edu.