Law Commons^™

Toward A Pedagogy For Teaching Legal Writing In Law School Clinics, Tonya Kowalski

Tonya Kowalski

One of the major legal skills students use in almost every law school clinic is advanced legal writing. Clinicians spend many hours every week triaging student writing and coaching their students to produce practice-worthy documents. Yet advanced legal writing is not routinely addressed in clinic seminars and there is no clear methodology for teaching advanced legal writing through clinical supervision. This Article is the first to propose a comprehensive pedagogy for teaching and supervising legal writing in clinic.

Moreover, clinicians commonly experience the frustration that students seem to come to the clinic deficient in many legal writing skills. This Article …

True North: Navigating For The Transfer Of Learning In Legal Education, Tonya Kowalski

Tonya Kowalski

As lifelong learners, we all know the feelings of discomfort and bewilderment that can come from being asked to apply existing skills in a completely new situation. As legal educators, we have also experienced the frustration that comes from watching our students struggle to identify and transfer skills from one learning environment to another. For example, a first-semester law student who learns to analogize case law to a fact pattern in a legal writing problem typically will not see the deeper applications for those skills in a law school essay exam several weeks later. Similarly, when law students learn how …