Other Conferences

Upcoming International Conferences:

APPEAL Conference on Promoting the Teaching of Legal Writing in Southern Africa will be held in Pretoria, South Africa, from July 1 to 4, 2009. The conference will focus on the development of curricula in legal writing for law faculties in Southern Africa, with a particular emphasis on handling large, undergraduate class loads and teaching to students with a variety of language and educational backgrounds. More details to follow.

July 22-24, 2009: "Once Upon a Legal Time, Chapter 2:  Applied Storytelling in Law."

Once Upon a Legal Time, Chapter 2: Applied Storytelling in Law will be held at Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon on July 22-24, 2009:  Building on the success of the first conference, held in London in 2007, this conference seeks to foster collaboration and dialogue about the skill of storytelling in law and about teaching storytelling and other skills to lawstudents and practitioners. This conference will bring together academics, judges, and practitioners to explore the role of narrative in legal practice andcurricular strategies that will prepare students to use story and narrative as they enter the practice of law.  The conference schedule and registration information can be found here.

Upcoming Regional LW Conferences:

 August 28-29, 2009:  Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference:  "Legal Writing in a Green World:  Recycle, Reuse, Rethink" and ALWD Legal Writing Scholars' Forum.

Lewis & Clark Law School and the University of Oregon School of Law are pleased to announce their joint sponsorship of the 2009 Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference.  Because of that sponsorship, the conference will have NO registration fee.

The conference will begin on Friday, August 28, 2009, with an early evening reception at the University of Oregon's downtown Portland facility, the White Stag Building.  All working sessions will take place the following day at the Lewis & Clark campus.

You may submit proposals for presentations via e-mail to Rebekah Hanley at rhanley@uoregon.edu.  Please include the presentation title, a brief description, the time requested (25-minute solo presentation or 50-minute panel discussion), a description of technology needs, and your contact information.

More information about special rates for hotel accomodations will be available soon.

In addition to the  conference, there will also be a day-long Legal Writing Scholars' Forum on Friday, August 28, funded by ALWD and taking place in downtown Portland at the White Stag Building.  The forum will present an opportunity for new and experienced scholars alike to generate ideas, learn about the writing process, find mentors, and set appropriate deadlines for completion.  For more information on participation, contact Suzanne Rowe at srowe@uoregon.edu.

September 11-13, 2009:  Southeast Regional Legal Writing Conference & ALWD Scholars' Forum/Workshop.

Stetson University College of Law will host on its Gulfport, Florida, campus the 2009 Southest Regional Legal Writing Conference on September 11 and 12, 2009, along with an ALWD Scholars' Forum/Workshop on September 13, 2009.

The conference theme, "Remixing the Classics," honors the classical legal writing conepts of the last 25 years and recognizes the need to "remix" those traditional ideas to meet the needs of new students, to adapt to new facult expectation, and to move the discipline forward.  The plenary speaker for the conference will be Mary Beth Beazley, Associate Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in Columbus, Ohio. Finally, an ALWD Scholars' Forum/Workshop will be held at the end of the conference.  Up to 16 participants will present their scholarship ideas, works-in-progress, or further developed drafts of legal writing articles to other legal writing factulty for feedback.

The Program Committee encourages proposals for 25-minute conference presentations or panel discussions, but anticipates that there will be a few 55-minute slots as well.  Conference proposals can be submitted by email to Catherine Cameron, Program Committee Co-Chair, at ccameron@law.stetson.edu. The deadline to submit conference proposals is April 3, 2009.

To participate in the Scholars' Forum/Workshop, please email Ann Piccard, Program Co-Chair, at Piccard@law.stetson.edu. The deadline to respond is May 1, 2009.

Please direct any further questions to Kirsten Davis at kkdavis@law.stetson.edu.  The website for the conference is now available here.

October 9-10, 2009:  2009 Central States Regional LRW/Lawyering Skills Conference, "Climate Change:  Alternative Sources of Energy in Legal Writing."

Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will be hosting the 2009 Central States Regional LRW/Lawyering Skills Conference.  The conference planners are also planning a Scholars' Forum to be held on October 9 in conjunction with the conference to include an hour-long discussion on getting published and giving effective presentations.  Expect to receive a call for proposals for the conference and more information about the Scholars' Forum soon.  Save the date!

May 14, 2010:  First Annual Empire State Legal Writing Conference.

Hofstra Law School in Hempstead, New York, will be the location for the first annual Empire State Legal Writing Conference, to be held on May 14, 2010.  The Conference will be a one-day event, timed in such a way that people in the greater NYC area can easily travel to the Law School and back on the conference day.  Needless to say, out of town participants are welcome, and we will be arranging a conference rate at a local hotel, as well as transportation to the Law School.  We will be sending out a Request for Proposals in the fall and the Committee will make its selections by December or January.  The Planning Committee (still in formation) includes Robin Boyle, St. John's; Ian Gallacher, Syracuse; Tracy McGaugh, Touro; John Mollenkamp, Cornell; and Marilyn Walter, Brooklyn, as well as Amy Stein, Scott Colesanti, Susan Joffe and Frank Gulino from Hofstra.  Richard Neumann has also offered his expert assistance.  Save the date!

Upcoming Other Conferences:

July 16-18, 2009:  2009 ALWD Conference.

Site host:  University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.

Event hosts:  Washburn University and University of Kansas Schools of Law.

Recently Held Conferences:

June 3-5, 2009:  Global Legal Skills Conference IV.

The Global Legal Skills Conference IV will be held at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C. June 3 to 5, 2009.  For information on the call for papers for this conference click here.

May 29-30, 2009:   2009 Lone Star Legal Research & Writing Conference.

Texas Tech University School of Law will be hosting the 2009 Lone Star Legal Research & Writing Conference.  To register for the conference, please visit the registration web page.  To learn more about the conference, visit the event web page.

 If you have any additional questions, email the Texas Tech School of Law Legal Practice Program Director, Professor Nancy Soonpaa, at nancy.soonpaa@ttu.edu.

March 13-14, 2009:  2009 Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference.

The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University announces the 2009 Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference. The conference will be held March 13-14, 2009. The keynote address will be by Linda Edwards, the 2008-2009 Blackwell Award Winner, Macon Professor of Law, and Director of Legal Writing at Mercer University School of Law, and current Visiting Professor of Law at William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.  The conference will include sessions on both days and will feature sessions for both new and experienced legal writing professionals.  For more information, including details about the call for proposals click here.

January 6, 2009: "Law & Rhetoric Workshop: Legal Writing Through a Rhetorical Lens."

Mercer University School of Law sponsored a law and rhetoric workshop on January 6, 2009, at the Hilton San Diego, Gaslamp Quarter, immediately before the start of the AALS Annual Meeting and at a hotal across the street from the conference hotel.

The workshop brought together a group of people with common interests in legal rhetoric for a day of conversation that generated new ideas and strengthened existing connections between rhetorical theory and legal writing scholarship, teaching, and practice. Steven J. Mailloux, Chancellor's Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California-Irvine, began the discussion, with other speakers available at the workshop website. For more information click here.

January 6, 2009:  "Technology, Ethics and the Practice of Law:  Training the 21st Century Law Student."

California Western School of Law in San Diego, California, hosted this free workshop on the eve  of the AALS Annual Meeting. This workshop was held to celebrate the launching of the "Skills Training for Ethical and Preventive Practice and career Satisfaction (STEPPS)" program at California Western, and  featured Catherine Sanders Reach, the Director of the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. The workshop was of interest to deans, faculty, and staff involved in curricular reform, professional responsibility training or skills training, and librarians.  For more information about the workshop please click here.

December 5, 2008:  "Practice Meets Pedagogy."

St. John's University School of Law hosted a Legal Research and Writing Conference on December 5, 2008, in New York City. Titled "Practice Meets Pedagogy," the conference explored how legal research and writing as taught in law school can best prepare new lawyers for practice in today's workplace. Topics included developments in the workplace affecting the skills expected of beginning lawyers; how legal employers assess applicants' legal writing skills; changes in the nature of writing tasks assigned to beginning lawyers; and the advanced training in legal writing now made available by many legal employers. Speakers and panelists were primarily from the world of practice, and included judges, lawyers in private firms and public interest organizations, law librarians, and others. A panel of legal writing professors addressed the interface between the academy and the world of practice, innovations in the legal writing curriculum, and related topics.

For more information, please click here.

December 1, 2008:  "Teaching Through Technology -- Making Chalkboards Obsolete."

Suffolk University's Legal Practice Skills Program hosted a conference, "Teaching Through Technology - Making Chalkboards Obsolete," held on December 1, 2008, for the New England Consortium for Legal Writing Teachers. This conference allowed participants to see demonstrations and receive training on podcasts, clickers, and wikis. What makes this conference unique is that each presentation not only offered the perspective of legal writing and research professors who have incoroporated these methods into their classrooms, but it  also provided attendees with hands-on tutorials on using the various forms of technology. For more information, please contact Sabrina DeFabritiis of Suffolk at:  sdefabritiis@suffolk.edu.

November 7, 2008:  "How Legal Rhetoric Shapes the Law II -- The Language of Violence and Torture."

American University Washington College of Law hosted a colloquium titled, "How Legal Rhetoric Shapes the Law II -- The Language of Violence and Torture," on Friday, November 7, 2008. The colloquium featured a keynote address by Professor Peter Brooks, a scholar of narrative theory, who spoke on "The Ethics of Reading" to kick off a day of discussing how language can be used, interpreted, manipulated to justify violence, and, perhaps, also to combat it. There were also two panel discussions and an innovative workshop for legal writing teachers on introducing these ideas in the legal writing classroom.  For more details click here.

October 14-17, 2008:  "Ideology and the Rule of Law." 

The International Institute for Legal Writing and Reasoning sponsored a conference October 14-17, 2008, in New York City.  The purpose of the conference was to provide an opportunity for judicial officers, academics, and practitioners to examine the cultural and philosophical aspects of the law in an international and multi-cultural setting.  Participants included judges, tribunal members, attorneys, academics, and legal officers from a number of legal systems and nations.  For more information click here.

September 19, 2008:  "Persuasion in Legal Writing and Lawyering."

Rutgers School of Law-Camden and University of Wyoming College of Law co-sponsored a one-day conference, "Persuasion in Legal Writing and Lawyering," held on September 19, 2008, in Camden, New Jersey. The conference featured three interactive panels about logos, pathos, and ethos.  For more information click here.

August 4-7, 2008:  Istanbul Legal Skills Conference:

In Istanbul, Turkey. For more information, contact:

Tracy L. McGaugh
Associate Professor, Legal Process
Touro Law Center
225 Eastview Dr.
Central Islip, NY l1722
631.761.7184
tmcgaugh@tourolaw.edu

Millennial Law Prof Blog:
www.themillennials.org

If you are involved in planning or publicizing an upcoming legal writing conference, please contact the Legal Writing Institute website committee by emailing Dan Real at DReal@creighton.edu about having your conference added to this page.