Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing Program Recognized Nationally
The Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing (LARW) Program at Washburn University School of Law has been recognized as a leading legal writing program, ranking in the top 25 out of a field of 184 accredited law schools in the U.S. News & World Report's 2008 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools.
J. Lyn Entrikin Goering, associate professor of law and director of Washburn's LARW Program, credits the program's success to the foresight and leadership of the law school faculty, who recognized the need to establish a strong legal writing program long before she joined the Washburn faculty.
"The success of the LARW program rests on the commitment and support of the entire faculty. It was our law faculty who voted in favor of my proposal to devote the necessary resources to establish positions for full-time, tenure-track legal writing professors for our program," Goering said. That vote took place in October 2004, and Goering has been building the program ever since. Most recently, she spearheaded a legal writing symposium, "The Art of Advocacy: Writing to Win," held on the Washburn campus March 9-10. The symposium highlighted Washburn Law's legal writing faculty, which also includes associate professors of law Aïda M. Alaka, Jeffrey D. Jackson and Tonya Kowalski. Speakers included appellate judges from the United States Courts of Appeals for the Tenth and Eighth Circuits and the Kansas Court of Appeals, and trial judges from state and federal district courts in Kansas. The keynote speaker for the event was nationally recognized legal writing scholar Professor Mary Beth Beazley of the Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law.
Rankings for the legal writing programs are based solely on votes by law faculty listed in the AALS Directory of Law Teachers 2005-2006 as teaching in the field, or by directors of legal writing programs. Each ballot recipient was asked to vote for up to 15 legal writing programs considered the most highly regarded among those who specialize in the legal writing field.
"The results therefore reflect the evaluation of our program by other faculty members across the country who are experienced in teaching legal writing," said Goering.
Raising the national visibility of Washburn's legal writing program has been one of Goering's goals. In addition to last month's symposium, the law school recently began hosting DIRCON, the listserv for the Association of Legal Writing Directors.
