A Curmudgeon’s View of The Multi-Generational Teaching of Legal Writing

Abstract

This essay is an effort to open a discussion about some aspects of the academic legal writing world that have been increasingly troubling me for several years. In January 2020 Professor Sue Liemer of Elon University School of Law put together a diverse panel of legal writing professors for a session titled “The Multi-Generational Teaching of Legal Writing.” The proposal called for participants “to keep an informal journal of experiences relevant to the discussion group’s topic” to “serve as springboards for the participants’ written presentation summaries.” The proposal noted that the “overall goal of the discussion group is to articulate and explore pedagogical issues that bubble beneath the surface as legal writing professors from four generations are now teaching at United States law schools.”

Keywords: legal writing, academy, pedagogy