The Legal Writing Academy

“It has been a common lament – echoed by everyone from the 17th century poet John Donne to Franklin Roosevelt – that lawyers do not write well.” Nearly every survey of judges, lawyers, and clients indicates that an inability to write clearly and persuasively is a persistent problem for law students, young lawyers, and even experienced practitioners.

This skills gap is made worse by the changing nature of litigation and our court system. While civil suit filings have increased five-fold over the last four decades, the number of civil trials has dramatically decreased. In 1962, a civil litigator had an 11.5% chance of going to trial, but that number dropped to 1.8% by 2002. As Arthur Miller aptly noted: “We speak glowingly of letting people have their day in court. Now they have their day on papers.”

Thus, while legal writing continues to grow in terms of its importance and prominence in resolving lawsuits, the practice of legal writing continues to suffer from the same repeated failings and neglect. The pressure to extract more billable hours from both partners and associates exacerbates these failings, reducing time available for both training and rewriting. While both the legal academy and this school have taken steps to improve legal writing programs, we believe more can be done.

Read an article in Crain's Cleveland Business about the Legal Writing Academy here.

Director:
Maureen Sheridan Kenny, Associate Professor of Law

Assistant Directors:
Jennifer Cupar, Associate Professor of Law
David Carney, Professor of Law

Membership in the Academy:

To fulfill the Legal Writing Academy’s goal of embodying excellence in legal writing, we solicit members who are the “best of the best” in this field. We invite renowned legal writing commentators and extend membership to other outstanding legal writers by asking judges and firms to “nominate” outstanding legal writers.

Membership in the Academy is becoming a prestigious credential, and our members give back by participating in panel presentations, training sessions, CLE seminars, and providing samples of their superior work product. This helps the Academy fulfill one of its key objectives – providing role models for law students and other lawyers.


Services Offered by the Academy:

• CLE Seminars on Legal Writing - Full-day CLE seminars include presentations by high-profile legal writing commentators, as well as, training sessions taught by our Legal Writing faculty. Seminar draw practitioners looking to improve their legal writing skills and students seeking multiple, educated perspectives on legal writing. View more info on our seminar.
• Panel Presentations - These presentations feature practitioners and judges who speak about the importance of legal writing in practice. Judges offer unique views from the bench about what they believe makes for an excellent (or poor) brief, and the strengths and weaknesses they see in the briefs they read. Practitioners (often hiring partners of major law firms) provide insight into the common failings of young lawyers and what their firms expect of the lawyers they hire. Our most recent panel presentation.
• Training Sessions - The Academy will be offering regular training sessions focusing on individual, discrete legal writing topics with the goal of training young lawyers and law students to appreciate and develop their writing in these areas.
• Example Brief Bank - The Academy’s brief bank contains excellent briefs, and caters to one of the most fundamental principles in learning any skill – learning by example. Students and practitioners learn by studying outstanding examples, then applying similar techniques in their own writing. We are in the process of soliciting briefs for our brief bank. The briefs are reviewed and selected by the Directors of our Legal Writing Academy. To nominate a brief, please contact: Legal Writing Academy, c/o Maureen Sheridan Kenny (Director), 11075 East Blvd., Cleveland, Ohio 44106, legalwriting@case.edu, (216) 368-0045
• “Best Brief” Awards - Positive reinforcement for good writing motivates both law students and practicing attorneys to improve their legal writing. The Legal Writing Academy works with area firms and/or local bar associations to give awards for excellent briefs. A collection of exceptional briefs is stored in the Academy’s Brief Bank.
• Legal Writing Contests - The Academy promotes dozens of legal writing competitions sponsored by law schools and other organizations - many offering cash prizes as high as $10,000.