Fourth Legal Education Symposium, University of Limerick, May 2010.

1. Teaching Legal Writing
Online
Larry Donnelly, NUI Galway
Dr. Elaine Fahey, Dublin Institute of Technology
Rónán Kennedy, NUI Galway
Jennifer Schweppe, University of Limerick
4th Irish Legal Education Symposium
University of Limerick
14 May 2010

2. Teaching legal writing is hard work!
o “This teaching was the most
demanding, and in some ways the
most tedious, teaching I have ever
done. It was tedious in the sense of
grading individual papers for every
student every three weeks and going
over each one line-by-line with the
students. . .”

3. But it’s extremely important.
o "Legal writing is one of the most
important courses in law school. It
helps students develop analytical and
writing skills that will be crucial to
them, their clients, and the legal
system. Simply put, good writing is
essential to good lawyering."

4. Realities and challenges in Irish
legal education
o legal writing was not a part of the
traditional curriculum
o division – still persisting – between
third-level legal education and
professional schools
o need to introduce practical skill
training at an early stage

5. Realities and challenges in Irish
legal education (cont.)
o very large student numbers and
limited resources
o remedial help often needed
o extremely labour intensive teaching –
competing demands and pressures on
academics
o student attendance and engagement?
o lack of a distinctively Irish approach
to teaching legal writing

6. NUI Galway as case study
o approximately 270 students each year
across four degree programmes take a one
semester or full year introductory legal
research and writing module
o continuously assessed – four minor and one
major writing assignments (more
assignments for students in the full year
module)
o LL.M. students also take an advanced legal
research and writing module

7. Moving online: competing realities
o “An online component has the potential to
multiply the levels of learning in a course
and enrich each student’s individual
experience, as well as the collective work of
the class.”
o but. . .
o “As with all teaching methods and models,
it has to be used properly and be ‘the right
tool for the right job.’”

8. Legalwriting.ie
o Texts developed collaboratively using
MediaWiki
o Interactive web site under
development using Moodle
o Feedback will be obtained using
Vovici

9. Legalwriting.ie Demonstration
o Reading material
o Self-assessment exercises
o Tutor-marked exercises
o Automation of grading
o Creating new exercises

10. A final thought. . .
o “Most members of law firms tell me
that the young men who are coming
to them today cannot write well. I
think the situation has reached
epidemic proportions. . .”
o A speech by Dean William Warren of
Columbia Law School in 1958

11. Bibliography
o Lawrence Donnelly, “Irish Clinical Legal Education Ab Initio:
Challenges and Opportunities,” (2008/2009) 13 International
Journal of Clinical Legal Education 56.
o Emily Finch and Stefan Fafinski, Legal Skills (Oxford, 2nd Ed.
2009).
o James Gordon III, “An Integrated First-Year Legal Writing
Program,” 39 Journal of Legal Education 609 (1989).
o Roy Mersky, “Teaching Legal Research,” 2 Scribes Journal of Legal
Writing 148 (1991).
o Thomas O’Malley, Sources of Law (Dublin, 2nd Ed., 2001).
o Joseph Rosenberg, “Confronting Clichés in Online Instruction:
Using a Hybrid Model To Teach Lawyering Skills,” 12 SMU Science
and Technology Law Review 19 (2008).
o Kent Syverud, “Better Writing, Better Thinking: Concluding
Thoughts,” 10 Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing
Institute 83 (2004).