Stanford Law School is committed to training students to meet the highest professional standards. When our law students graduate, they serve as lawyers, law clerks, professors, government officials, activists and corporate executives. They also regularly work with lay people and professionals from a wide range of other disciplines. Stanford Law School's first year Legal Research and Writing program prepares students for these demands by focusing on the analysis of sophisticated legal problems and clear, persuasive writing.
Our first priority is to teach our students the legal analysis and writing they will do as practicing lawyers, though these skills are transferable across many professions. In LRW, students develop analytical and research skills, and they learn to become agile as writers and speakers, in the context of resolving a legal problem.
LRW is a required course for all first year law students because it teaches students the fundamental aspects of lawyering: how to read a case; how to parse a statute; how to distinguish between material and immaterial facts; how to find legal authorities relevant to legal problems; how to analyze a legal issue using facts and law; and how to communicate legal analysis logically, clearly and concisely. LRW also serves as a bridge to Stanford's clinical program, advanced writing courses, externships, and ultimately to law practice.
Stanford Law School is committed to training students to meet the highest professional standards. When our law students graduate, they serve as lawyers, law clerks, professors, government officials, activists and corporate executives. They also regularly work with lay people and professionals from a wide range of other disciplines. Stanford Law School's first year Legal Research and Writing program prepares students for these demands by focusing on the analysis of sophisticated legal problems and clear, persuasive writing.
Our first priority is to teach our students the legal analysis and writing they will do as practicing lawyers, though these skills are transferable across many professions. In LRW, students develop analytical and research skills, and they learn to become agile as writers and speakers, in the context of resolving a legal problem.
LRW is a required course for all first year law students because it teaches students the fundamental aspects of lawyering: how to read a case; how to parse a statute; how to distinguish between material and immaterial facts; how to find legal authorities relevant to legal problems; how to analyze a legal issue using facts and law; and how to communicate legal analysis logically, clearly and concisely. LRW also serves as a bridge to Stanford's clinical program, advanced writing courses, externships, and ultimately to law practice.
We teach LRW as a simulation. The simulation materials often consist of mock client interviews, depositions, and exhibits. Students work, independently and in groups, to resolve a client's legal problem using these simulation materials. By situating the legal writing assignments in the context of legal problem-solving, students learn through experience the interplay between fact investigation, legal research, legal analysis and writing. Law students, in their role as lawyers, work collaboratively with co-counsel and opposing counsel, and we use this setting to emphasize professional norms, ethics, timeliness, and courtesy, in addition to legal strategy.
Because legal research instruction is integrated into the simulation, our students engage in various legal research methods. We believe it is important that students learn to use both traditional and electronic resources. Over the course of the year, students research issues involving state and federal law, and use a broad range of legal authorities, including judicial opinions, statutes, legislative history, administrative regulations, law review articles, encyclopedias and practice manuals. Research is taught by both librarian lecturers, who bring their vast knowledge of traditional and electronic resources, and LRW lecturers, who teach using a process-oriented approach familiar to practicing lawyers. By the conclusion of the course, students are exposed to all major legal research methods.
The fall and spring curricula are designed to provide students with work that corresponds to their growing sophistication in legal analysis and writing. Students learn predictive analysis in the context of a semester-long pre-litigation client simulation in the fall, and persuasive analysis in a semester-long appellate moot court simulation in the spring.
In the fall, students receive rigorous training in reading and analyzing legal authority. Students closely read legal opinions and learn how to recognize the strategies adopted by legal writers to subtly persuade their audiences of the correctness of their decisions. Students then learn how to use these strategies — legal analysis, narrative, rhetoric, analogy and distinction, overarching legal theory and public policy — to frame and develop a legal argument based on legal authority. Students are taught to express their analysis with the clarity and precision that is the hallmark of excellent practicing lawyers.
In the spring, students further develop their analytical skills in the persuasive context. The spring program shifts to an advocacy perspective, as students take a simulated case from filing a notice of appeal through oral argument. Given the solid foundation of the fall program, students are able to tackle challenging legal issues requiring extensive research and in-depth analysis. Previous moot court problems have involved drug-related evictions from public housing, the death penalty, public employee free speech rights, the application of the American with Disabilities Act to websites, and the Fair Housing Act. Over the course of the semester, students write an appellate brief and prepare for oral argument. The course culminates in a moot court oral argument, which is judged by local attorneys and judges, many of whom are Stanford Law School alumni.
LRW is taught in small classes of approximately 30 students per section. LRW lecturers teach only one section, resulting in one of the lowest student-teacher ratios in the country for programs with full-time teachers. This allows students to receive a great deal of individual attention, with intensive written feedback and individual conferences with LRW lecturers. All feedback is provided by full-time lecturers, not student assitants.
LRW lecturers are law fellows with experience as practicing lawyers. Fellows are selected based on their law practice experience, academic achievement, promise as legal scholars, and enthusiasm for teaching.
Inquiries about the program may be directed to:
Applications to become a Legal Research and Writing Lecturer in Law should be sent to:
Stanford Law School invites Fellowship applications for the forthcoming academic year (2008-09). The legal research and writing program is an essential part of the first-year program at Stanford, and the Fellows play a crucial role in its success. Fellows teach legal writing, research and analysis to a small section of approximately thirty first-year students while preparing their own scholarship in preparation for entering the market for full-time tenure track teaching positions around the country. Fellows participate in faculty workshops at the law school and have access to a research budget to support their scholarly work.
The fall semester course is taught as a simulation. Research and writing problems are uniform across the program, and Fellows are expected to work collaboratively to prepare problems, assignments and in-class exercises. Students receive rigorous training in reading and analyzing legal authority, and in using persuasive strategies — legal analysis, narrative, rhetoric, analogy and distinction, overarching legal theory and public policy - to frame and develop a legal argument based on legal authority. Students are taught to express their analysis with the clarity and precision that is the hallmark of excellent practicing lawyers. Fellows work closely with students, reviewing assignments with students on an individual basis. Legal research is taught in close collaboration with the law librarians. Fellows may enhance the core curriculum with topics of their choice, with the approval of the Director. The fellowship program is demanding and LRW Instructors are expected to devote their full-time effort to it. The term of appointment is one year and begins on May 16, 2008. The salary for beginning Fellows is $50,000. Fellows may request to be re-appointed for up to a third year. Such requests are granted if the applicant has exhibited strong performance and the promise of teaching excellence. The salary for returning Fellows is currently $55,000 per year.
Applicants should have a JD and at least two years of law practice or clerkship experience before the start of the term of employment. Applications should include a letter summarizing the candidate's interest in the program, educational qualifications and experience as well as any other information relevant to the selection decision. Applicants should also provide an official law school transcript, resume, copies of any publications, and three letters of recommendation commenting on the applicant's suitability for the position with respect to teaching ability, analytic capability, interpersonal skills, and writing ability. At least one letter of recommendation must be from a law professor. Recent graduates should include at least two letters from professors. Letters of recommendation should be sent directly from the writer to the law school. Applicants should provide both a writing sample from law practice, either an objective memo or a persuasive brief, and a sample of academic writing.
All applications must be completed by November 1, 2007.
Inquiries about the program may be directed to:
Jeanne Merino
Director, 1L Legal Research and Writing
jmerino@law.stanford.edu
650 725.8526
Applications should be sent to:
Faye Deal, Associate Dean
Legal Research and Writing Committee
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, California 94305-8610