2019 Legal Research and Writing
Leading the way.
Leading the Way in Legal Communication Celebrating the Future: Gen Z as Legal Communicators
Dr. Kirsten Davis with Dr. Corey Seemiller
Stetson’s Institute for the Advancement of Legal Communication celebrated its sixth year focusing on the communication issues that face lawyers, judges, other professionals and the public by hosting Generation Z expert Dr. Corey Seemiller for a half-day discussion of Generation Z students and their characteristics as law students. This training and discussion focused faculty, staff, employers and others on topics like effective communication with and engagement strategies for Gen Z students.
Institute Gets Grant for Advancing Legal Communication Scholarship Circle Institute Faculty Kirsten Davis, Lance Long and Anne Mullins secured a grant from Stetson’s Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence to start the Advancing Legal Communication Scholarship Circle. The Circle’s goal was to produce legal communication-related scholarship for publication by creating time and space for writing. During the semester, members of the Circle met to work on scholarship. Professor Mullins’ scholarly work supported by the Circle appears in the Wake Forest Law Review, the Washburn Law Journal, and the North Dakota Law Review.
Teaching Legal Writing: Out of the Box Ideas Inside The Institute continues its signature teaching project that collects, organizes and shares the legal writing community’s favorite classroom exercises and other teaching ideas. In addition to Stetson’s Institute Faculty, legal writing faculty from across the nation have added teaching ideas about research, writing, style, attribution and persuasion to The Box. To learn more about The Box and to request your own, visit stetson.edu/thebox.
New Legal Communication Training for Sign Language Interpreters Institute Faculty Jason Palmer was instrumental in developing Jason Palmer an innovative communication training at Stetson: a two-day workshop for sign language interpreters in a live mock-trial courtroom setting. The workshop tackles some of the challenges unique to courtroom sign language interpreting, like navigating the courtroom environment and conveying abstract concepts and technical legal terms. Now in its second year, the workshop provides a unique opportunity for sign language interpreters to have a real courtroom experience. The workshop is one of the ways Stetson demonstrates its commitment to focusing on training law-related professionals in legal communication skills. To learn more about the workshop, visit stetson.edu/law/news/sign-interpreting.
Preparing Law Students for Communicating as Professionals: Stetson Conference Wins ABA Gambrell Professionalism Award Stetson’s Campus-to-Career Professional Development Conference was awarded the 2019 American Bar Association’s E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award, which recognizes exemplary, innovative and ongoing professionalism programs that ensure integrity and dedication to the legal profession and the public. Institute Faculty Kirsten Davis serves as the Conference’s planning committee faculty co-chair. The conference features programming that helps students develop professional skills, including their communication skills. “Legal communication training extends beyond the classroom,” said Dr. Davis. “We’ve designed the conference to include communication skills like managing disagreement, cross-cultural communication, networking and communicating in teams.” To learn more about the conference, visit stetson.edu/law/pdc.
Legal Research and Writing: A Commitment to Excellence Stetson’s commitment to legal communication extends to teaching Legal Research and Writing. Stetson is ranked third among law schools for legal writing by U.S. News & World Report (2020). It has consistently ranked among the top six legal writing programs since the inception of the Legal Writing rankings. Stetson Law features: • Full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty teaching in the first-year curriculum • Unitary tenure and title for all full-time legal writing faculty • Seven credits of required legal research and writing •S ubject-focused first-year advocacy courses in areas such as elder law, environmental law, international law and the First Amendment •A dvanced legal writing courses, including Judicial Writing, Successful Writing for Law Practice, Pretrial Practice and Contract Drafting • Four academic law journals: – Journal for International Aging Law and Policy – Journal for International Wildlife Law and Policy – Stetson Journal of Advocacy and the Law – Stetson Law Review
stetson.edu/law/reimagining-advocacy
Save the Date! Reimagining Advocacy Conference November 8 & 9, 2019 Stetson University College of Law | Gulfport, Florida Join us for a day-and-a-half to explore the future of legal advocacy theory, practice and education.
Faculty Updates Linda Anderson
J.D., Franklin Pierce Law Center (now UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law) In addition to teaching first-year legal research and writing, Professor Anderson teaches Stetson’s Survey of Florida Law course to help students taking the Florida bar exam hone their essay-writing skills. She just completed the preliminary edition of Florida Bar Exam Essay Prep to be published by Cognella Academic Publishing.
Brooke Bowman J.D., Stetson University M.S.L.I.S., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Professor Bowman continues to serve as Director of Finances for Stetson’s Advocacy Boards as well as Director of the Moot Court Board. In addition, she will serve as Interim Law Library Director again this year. She presented “But I Am Bashful . . . How to Be Happy, and Not Grumpy, During Oral Arguments” at the 2018 Legal Writing Institute One-Day Workshops at the University of Louisville and the University of Akron. Professor Bowman joined the Editorial Board of Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing and was elected to be the publication’s first Managing Editor.
Catherine Cameron J.D., University of Florida M.A., University of Florida Institute Faculty Professor Cameron’s 2017 article, “In the Eyes of the Law Student: Determining Reading Patterns with Eye-Tracking Technology,” appeared in the Rutgers Law Record. Last summer she taught her class, The Internet, the Law, and Populist Uprisings, in Stetson’s study abroad program in Granada, Spain. Together with Professor Lance Long, Professor Cameron completed the second edition of their legal writing text, The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing, published by Carolina Academic Press.
Kirsten Davis J.D., The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Ph.D., Arizona State University Dr. Davis is the Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Legal Communication. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute and is incoming Chair of the Florida Bar’s Standing Committee on Professionalism. Dr. Davis spent Spring 2019 serving as Stetson’s Interim Assistant Dean of Student Affairs. She is a regular contributor to the Appellate Advocacy Blog, and her essay, “Reading Legal Writing Together: Reading Groups Can Build the Disciplinary Community of Legal Writing Scholars,” appears in Volume 23 of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. She is currently working on a co-edited book that connects classical rhetoric to contemporary law.
Faculty Updates Kelly Feeley J.D., Stetson University Institute Faculty Professor Feeley serves as Co-Chair of the Competitions Committee and as a Subcommittee member of both the Negotiation Competition and National Appellate Advocacy Competition for the American Bar Association Law Student Division. She is co-author of Mastering Interviewing and Counseling, forthcoming from Carolina Academic Press in Fall 2019.
Royal Gardner J.D., Boston College Law School Professor Gardner is the Director of Stetson’s Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy, and his work focuses on the intersection of environmental science and policy. As Chair of the scientific advisory body for the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (2013-2018), he helped ensure that its technical publications are accessible to wetland managers and policymakers. Professor Gardner received Stetson’s 2019 Dickerson-Brown Award for Excellence in Faculty Research for his work on the Global Wetlands Outlook, Ramsar’s flagship publication on the state of the world’s wetlands. He was the lead author of a scientific review paper, “Advocating for Science: Amici Curiae Brief of Wetland and Water Scientists in Support of the Clean Water Rule,” published in the peer-reviewed journal Wetlands in May 2019.
Lance Long J.D., Brigham Young University Institute Faculty Professor Long continues to focus his legal communication scholarship and teaching on experiential environmental advocacy. With student volunteers and members of his Environmental Advocacy class, Professor Long provided research and drafted an amicus brief in climate change litigation brought by Our Children’s Trust in Florida state court. Professor Long participated with nationally known climate activists and attorneys in a panel titled “Current Developments with the Climate Change Necessity Defense” at the 2019 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. Together with Professor Cameron, Professor Long published the second edition of their legal writing text, The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing. His most recent article, “The Climate Necessity Defense: Proof and Judicial Error in Climate Protest Cases,” was published in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal in December 2018.
Anne Mullins J.D., University of Chicago Law School Institute Faculty Professor Mullins is President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. She was Conference Chair for the Association’s 2019 Biennial Conference. She serves the Legal Writing Institute as a member of the DisciplineBuilding Working Group and the Scholarship Grants Committee; she also serves the AALS Section on Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research as a member of the Nominations Committee. This year, Professor Mullins published “Opportunity in the Age of Alternative Facts” in the Washburn Law Journal and “Meta Is Better” in the North Dakota Law Review. She also contributed to Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Employment Discrimination Opinions (Cambridge University Press), rewriting Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa, 539 U. S. 90 (2003). Her article, “Source-Relational Ethos in Judicial Writing,” is forthcoming in the Wake Forest Law Review.
Faculty Updates Jason Palmer J.D., George Washington University Institute Faculty Professor Palmer is beginning his two-year appointment as Stetson’s Leroy Highbaugh Sr. Research Chair. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute and was elected in July 2018 to a two-year term as Treasurer. For the past two years, he has been involved in planning the Biennial Applied Legal Storytelling Conference. He is the Co-General Editor of the ABA’s Section of International Law, The Year in Review; an associate editor of Scribes Journal of Legal Writing; and a corresponding editor for the American Society of International Law’s International Legal Materials. Professor Palmer is Chair of the AALS Committee on Professional Development (Arc of Career). Professor Palmer presented “Cut Curbs: Using Universal Design in the Law School Curriculum (To Teach Millennials, Students with Disabilities, and Gen Z)” at the 2018 Biennial Legal Writing Conference and “Emotional Intelligence and Homophobia” as an invited speaker at the Cognitive Emotion and the Law Symposium at Wake Forest University Law School.
Ann Piccard J.D., Stetson University LL.M., University of London Professor Piccard is the Wm. Reece Smith, Jr., Distinguished Professor, focusing on professionalism and service to the law school and greater community. She is the author of the 2017 book U.S. Legal Writing for International Lawyers and Law Students published by West Academic. Professor Piccard continues to serve as a Co-Director of Stetson’s Social Justice Advocacy Concentration program and taught Poverty Law in Spring 2019. She is the first law school faculty member to be awarded a Nina B. Hollis Impact Research grant to pursue her Florida School to School Pipeline project. The project pairs teens in foster care with law student volunteer Education Partners to facilitate foster teens’ pursuit of higher education, positioning them to break the cycle of poverty and neglect that is responsible for many teens aging out of foster care and proceeding directly to the criminal justice system.
Stephanie Vaughan J.D., Stetson University In addition to teaching legal research and writing, Professor Vaughan co-teaches International Sales Law & Arbitration, an innovative course combining doctrine and legal advocacy skills. She also co-coaches Stetson’s Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot team. Last year, the team advanced to the Elite 8 of 372 teams in the Vienna, Austria, competition and won the Florida Bar International Law Section Richard DeWitt Memorial Vis International Commercial Arbitration Pre-Moot in Miami. This year, Stetson’s team was the only team from the United States participating in the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s Pre-Moot in The Hague, Netherlands, and Professor Vaughan served as an arbitrator in the Peace Palace during the competition. Professor Vaughan completed her role as Associate Dean for Student Engagement in December 2018.
Visit us at stetson.edu/law/lrw to learn more about our legal writing curriculum and the Institute for the Advancement of Legal Communication. 1401 61st Street South • Gulfport, Florida 33707