University of Arkansas at Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law offers six credit hours in legal research and legal writing, covering two semesters, in the first year. The first semester covers the basics of legal analysis and predictive writing, with students mastering the process of legal writing through several drafts of office memoranda. The second semester provides a transition into persuasive writing, featuring trial-level and appellate briefs. Legal research is taught over two semesters by the law school’s library staff. The first-year writing program dovetails with the school’s second-year six-hour lawyering skills requirement, taught by practitioners and other full-time law faculty, which further develops students’ abilities in drafting, interviewing, counseling, and advocacy. In addition, UALR’s legal writing faculty offer upper-level writing electives in drafting, appellate advocacy, advanced legal research, and scholarly writing and editing, as well as teaching doctrinal courses such as Disability Law, Immigration Law, Family Law, and Decedents’ Estates.

UALR’s legal writing program has achieved significant gains in scope, credit hours, size, and status in the last several years. As the ABA recognizes, “schools that hire tenured or tenure-track professors specifically to teach legal writing recognize legal writing as an integral part of the law school curriculum and accept the writing professors as an integral part of the school’s faculty.” ABA Sourcebook on Legal Writing Programs 87 (Eric B. Easton et al., eds., 2d ed. 2006). Beginning in 2000, UALR has offered the tenure track to its legal writing faculty, reflecting the law school’s firm commitment to the program and its professors.

Current members of the legal writing faculty are Ranko Shiraki Oliver, Coleen Barger, Lindsey Gustafson, and Michael Flannery. The law school is hiring a new legal writing professor on the tenure track to begin in the 2007-08 school year. UALR recognizes, supports, and honors the accomplishments of its legal writing faculty. Professors Barger, Gustafson, and Oliver are each past winners of the law school’s annual Excellence in Teaching Award, with Professor Oliver winning the overall university-wide Excellence in Teaching Award. Professors Flannery and Barger are past winners of the law school’s Excellence in Research and Excellence in Service awards, respectively. Professors Gustafson and Barger helped to found and continue to work as faculty editors of the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process.

Contact person:Coleen Barger, cmbarger@ualr.edu
Web page address: www.ualr.edu/cmbarger