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Joining the Club Without Paying Its
Dues: Newcomers View Their First
LWI Conference
By Tracy Bach, Assistant Professor of Legal Writing Vermont Law School
At the opening session of this summer's
Legal Writing Institute Conference at
Seattle University, LWI President Jane
Kent Gionfriddo asked people attending
their first conference to stand and be
recognized. I and (what seemed like) a
majority of those in the auditorium rose
from our seats. Looking into the sea of
faces, I began to wonder: all of us
newcomers had become LWI members
gratis by dint of becoming legal writing
teachers, but had we really joined the club?
When I left Seattle a few days later, chock
full of teaching tips, the latest in LRW
research and scholarship, and insights into
the organization, I was curious about what
others took home from their initial LWI
meeting.
Like all good professional gatherings,
the Seattle conference provided a forum
for putting faces with names. It was good
to see others as enthusiastic about their
work as I am about mine, said Michael
Santana, an Assistant Professor of Legal
Writing at Vermont Law School. While not
quite the meet and greet frenzy of
Sundance or even the annual law school
orientation picnic, the conference created
opportunities to see in person the people
whose books you've taught from and
listserv advice you've relied on. Not only
does it satisfy your curiosity, it brings you
that much more into the fold.
Moreover, the substance of the LWI
sessions showed the concem for good
teaching and caring collegiality that
exemplifies this organization. It was clear
from each session that experienced
teachers saw the conference as a chance to
mentor those just starting out, to help
newcomers learn how to teach students
positively. Numerous sessions focused on
pedagogy, from how to create assignments
and critique student work to drawing
lessons from different disciplines to enrich
our own teaching. Especially popular was
a workshop on critiquing student papers,
coordinated by Daniel Barnett of Boston
College Law School. Judy Giers, who
became a legal writing instructor at the
University of Oregon last June and
attended the conference in July before
teaching a day, benefitted from the
hands-on conference sessions and found
the Basics track very useful. While taking
a break from critiquing a stack of 54 first-
year memos, she happily acknowledged
that I took part of the problem on
covenants not to compete [used in the
critiquing session] and incorporated it into
my curriculum this fall. I already had
sample memos to use as a baseline.
Ben Bratman, Associate Director of
Legal Research and Writing at the State
University of New York at Buffalo School
of Law, also found the session materials
and insights remarkably helpful. I could
take these tangible ideas back to the
classroom and apply them, he recently
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