Villanova University School of Law

We are extremely proud of our Legal Writing Program at Villanova, in which courses are taught by seven full-time Legal Writing Professors with uncapped, renewable contracts. During the first year, students are enrolled in a year-long Legal Analysis, Writing, & Oral Advocacy course that currently awards two credits at the end of the first year. Each section has approximately 20 students. Legal research is taught separately by law librarians with at J.D. and library degrees. Each Legal Writing Professor teaches two sections, with the exception of the Assistant Dean for Legal Writing, who teaches one section. In the fall term, students prepare increasingly complex closed and then open research legal memoranda. During the spring term, students brief and argue an appellate problem, usually based on a traditional domestic law topic of the professors’ choosing. Second semester students may alternatively opt to enroll in International Advocacy, in which they learn to research international law, and then brief and argue a case before a moot International Court of Justice. This course is now in its twelfth year. After the first year, students must complete an upper level practical writing/skills course and a seminar course or directed research that requires a scholarly paper, and may enroll in other writing-intensive courses such as Advanced Legal Writing and Advanced Appellate Advocacy. Villanova also offers a variety of upper level writing experiences including moot court, three law journals, and a broad selection of seminar and skills courses.

Our Legal Writing Faculty members are hired with one-year contracts, which are renewable annually for the second and third years. Thereafter, the professors are offered renewable three-year contracts. The program is administered by the Assistant Dean for Legal Writing, who has an uncapped term and votes on all matters except for hiring, retention and promotion of tenure-track faculty. Lou Sirico, the Director of Legal Writing, a member of the tenured faculty, teaches Advanced Legal Writing and a variety of writing seminars for the law school and university community. In addition, Lou is the co-author, with Nancy Schultz, of a major legal writing text, Legal Writing & Other Lawyering Skills (LexisNexis 4th ed. 2004). Our Legal Writing Professors regularly present at regional and national Legal Writing Institute and ALWD Conferences, and are known for their work developing legal skills programs for international students and lawyers. In addition, our faculty members have developed and taught courses in Advanced Appellate Advocacy and Legal Analysis & Writing for undergraduates at Villanova and Lincoln Universities, as well as other courses in Villanova’s summer program in Montréal. Our faculty members serve on the boards of national legal writing organizations and publications, and regularly publish in the field of legal writing and other areas of the law.

For more information, contact Diane Edelman, Assistant Dean for Legal Writing, at edelman@law.villanova.edu.

A publication about our Legal Writing Program and Faculty can be found at http://www.law.villanova.edu/generalpublic/publicrelations/docs/ffgolw.pdf , and more extensive profiles are located at http://www.law.villanova.edu/facultyandstaff/facultyprofiles/facultyprofiles.asp . (click on Legal Writing Faculty).