On behalf of the Editorial Board, I’m excited to share Volume 29 of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. Legal Writing publishes scholarly works about the theory, substance, and pedagogy of legal writing. The articles in Volume 29 focus on pedagogy, but they weave in theory and substance, showing that the three categories often cannot be neatly separated. Their inventiveness is matched by the creativity of the essays, which—perhaps for the first time in the Journal’s history—feature several poems. The book reviews call attention to recently published books that are terrific resources for students while also providing fresh insights for even the most experienced legal writing professors.
Articles
Each of the articles reflects on our roles as educators: what we do, how we do it, and how we can do better. L. Danielle Tully’s Behind the Curve: Rethinking Norm-Referenced Grading in First-Year Legal Writing Courses contextualizes and critiques legal writing grading practices. Tully combines critical historical analysis with data from two new empirical studies to uncover a multi-layered story about the evolution of grading practices in law schools generally and in legal writing courses specifically. She urges legal writing professors to untangle grading policies from concerns about how they and their courses are valued, and to rethink norm-referenced grading.
In Teaching Cases: How Legal Writing Textbooks Approach the Rule Support Section, Alissa Bauer reports on how the fifteen most popular first-year legal writing textbooks approach rule support. Literally at the center of traditional legal analysis paradigms—the “E” in IREAC, CREAC, and TREAT—the rule support section describes how courts have interpreted or applied relevant rules. Bauer’s examination reveals a lack of uniformity, beginning with how the textbooks name the section (explanation, case illustrations, and rule proof are just a few examples) and extending into different philosophies about what we should teach our students.
Jonathan Moore’s interdisciplinary article, Guided Autonomy: A Research-Based Approach to Improving Students’ Wellbeing and Decision-Making in the Development of Problem-Solving Skills, addresses a dilemma at the core of teaching novice legal writers: how to strike the balance between fostering autonomy and providing adequate guidance. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory and Cognitive Load Theory, Moore introduces the “guided autonomy” approach and provides pointers on how to implement it in a first-year legal writing course.
Essays
The desire to create conditions conducive to student learning that connects the three articles also animates Alberto Rodriguez’s inviting essay, Enhancing the Legal Writing Curriculum with Provocative Quotes. After explaining why provocative quotes can add value to the legal writing classroom, Rodriguez shares examples of quotes that are well-suited to introduce class discussions about topics ranging from bias and prejudice to ensuring accuracy in citation and attribution.
Next up are three works of poetry that were submitted in response to our call for creative-format essays. Poems are for the reader to interpret, so I won’t attempt to describe them and instead will briefly introduce their authors. Susan Ayres is known in the legal writing community for her poem Pink Ghetto, which was published by the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism in 1999. A quarter of a century, two poetry chapbooks, and countless poems and law review articles later, we are thrilled to publish Every Law School Should Have a Poet. William L. Krayer, who wrote To Make Men Free, recently retired after a decades-long and impressive career as a patent attorney. Misti Duvall spent a decade practicing environmental and human rights law. Now in her third year as Columbia Law School’s writing specialist, she is debuting in Legal Writing not only as the author of Be Precise but also as an Assistant Editor.
Book Reviews
Volume 29 concludes with three book reviews. Mark Cooney highlights the actionable instruction on how to elevate writing from craft to art in Ryan McCarl’s Elegant Legal Writing. Anne Mullins reviews Megan McAlpin’s Beyond the First Draft, which breaks down how to use rewriting and editing to produce written work that is coherent, vigorous, clear, and polished. #Goals, as our students might say (or is that already dated?). Volume 29 closes with Elizabeth Rylander’s review of Amanda Dealy Haverstick’s Dear 1L, a collection of short pieces directed at beginning law students that were initially published on LinkedIn. Haverstick intersperses core writing tips with advice about tackling major assignments and adjusting to law school. Rylander’s review offers a pointed reminder that our students are learning in an environment that doesn’t always promote flourishing. And with that observation, Volume 29 has come full circle.
Writing is a process and so is editing. For authors, the thrill of an accepted offer soon turns into the realization that what felt like the finish was merely a mile marker. The author must turn around and run portions of the same course again, and again, and again. For editors, the process requires a deep investment in the quality of another person’s work. Now, at the end of the editing process, I am grateful to the authors for entrusting their complex articles, inspiring essays, and thoughtful book reviews to our journal. I am also grateful to my fellow Editorial Board members for their diligence in reviewing and selecting submissions. And I am especially grateful to Assistant Editor in Chief Andrele Brutus St. Val, Managing Editors Elizabeth Frost, Susan McMahon, and Christine Venter, Essay Editor Ann Ching, Book Review Editor Rachel Stabler, and the amazing group of Assistant Editors who worked so hard to help get this Volume across the finish line.
I hope you will enjoy the excellent contributions in Volume 29.
Irene Ten Cate
Editor in Chief
Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute