Mercer University School of Law

Program: Mercer has a 3-semester required program totaling the equivalent of 9 credits. In the first semester, students take Introduction to Legal Research and Legal Analysis. They also complete a required writing component as part of either Contracts or Criminal Law. The second semester covers predictive research and writing, including the forms of legal reasoning and common organizational paradigms. The third semester focuses on rhetorical techniques of persuasion and covers research, trial & appellate briefs, and 2 oral arguments. All core courses include drafts and re-writes of 2-3 major assignments per semester as well as a number of smaller assignments. Faculty hold both required and optional student conferences. The upper division includes 9 research and writing electives, and many students take a research or writing course every semester of their law study. Mercer also offers a Certificate Program in Advanced Legal Writing, Research, and Drafting, which takes upper-division students through an advanced research and writing curriculum. The Program includes weekly meetings of Advanced Writing Groups. Each Writing Group is limited to 6 students and is modeled after Peter Elbow’s concept of a "community of writers." Certificate Program students complete 17 credit hours of research and writing courses, not counting law review or moot court.

Faculty: All legal writing professors are either tenured or on a tenure track. The tenure-track is the same track as that of any other professor and includes identical salary, benefits, offices, administrative support, professional development funds, research stipends and assistants, voting rights, and committee responsibilities. There is no director. The faculty meets weekly, shares ideas, and makes programmatic decisions together. Everyone teaches a non-legal writing course as part of their normal course load (not as an overload). Legal Writing faculty have written or have contracts for 3 legal writing text books, 2 books in other areas, over 20 law review articles, and over 25 other publications. They regularly make presentations at legal writing conferences and have served in leadership positions in LWI, ALWD, the ABA Communication Skills Committee, and the AALS Section. Mercer serves as the host school for the Legal Writing Institute and co-hosted the 2006 Conference in Atlanta.

Website: www.law.mercer.edu/academics/legal_writing/index.cfm

Contact person: Edwards_LH@mercer.edu