Washington University School of Law in St. Louis

The first-year Legal Research & Writing course at Washington University uses a collaborative teaching model that pairs full-time legal writing professionals with professional librarians, all of whom have law degrees. Each paired team is responsible for teaching two small sections of approximately 20-23 students per section. The LRW program is currently staffed by six full-time legal writing professionals (five of whom are senior lecturers with long-term renewable contracts and one of whom is a lecturer eligible for a long-term contract in two years) and six professional librarians (who also carry the lecturer title). Many of the legal writing teachers also teach upper-level courses and serve as faculty advisors for several of the law school’s moot court and lawyering skills competitions. Senior lecturers have voting rights on all matters except appointment and promotion of faculty. The position of director of the LRW program is rotated every two years among the senior lecturers. Changes in the leadership encourage development of new programmatic ideas and afford senior lecturers additional opportunities for professional development. New skills are developed and a sense of mutual “ownership” is achieved because the directorship is shared among the legal writing faculty.

The number of credits awarded for the successful completion of both semesters of the course is five credit hours (two credits in the fall semester/three credits in the spring semester) and the course is graded anonymously using the law school’s mean for all first-year courses. For the major projects in the fall, students draft two to three memoranda and complete one in-depth legal research project. In the spring, students draft several short assignments, two court briefs, and take a comprehensive research exam. Every fall, second and third year students are surveyed regarding the kinds of legal work they completed in their summer employment. Based on the survey results, the program is continually “tweaked” to ensure we are providing students with the skills they need to be successful. The small class size enables the legal writing teachers to conduct three to four individual office conferences per semester with students to evaluate students’ work product and provide individualized instruction. In addition, the legal writing teachers meet individually with students after they have completed their research for their memos and briefs to give them an opportunity to practice the skill of orally presenting the results of their research to a senior attorney prior to drafting. All first year students engage in oral arguments in the spring semester. When possible, the legal writing teachers take advantage of visits by the Eighth Circuit to the law school to have students draft a brief based on an appeal currently before the Court. The students are then able to hear the oral arguments in the case for which they prepared court briefs. The Samuel M. Breckinridge award is given annually to one student from each legal writing section to recognize excellent performance in the course. In addition to upper-level drafting courses and required seminars, Advanced Legal Research and Advanced Legal Writing are offered to students on an elective basis after the first year of law school.

E-Mail Contact: Ann Davis Shields, davis@wulaw.wustl.edu

Webpage:
http://law.wustl.edu/