Professors Richard Frankel, Deborah Gordon and Emily Zimmerman teamed up for a presentation at the Sixth Biennial Conference on Applied Legal Storytelling at American University Washington College of Law on July 12.

The trio presented “Shifting Perspectives,” a session that explored methods to build litigation avoidance into legal writing courses that traditionally focus on writing in the context of litigation. The presentation was aimed at strategies for helping shift the perspectives of students trained to write briefs and memos in a litigation context.

The conference was organized by the Legal Writing Institute and the Clinical Legal Education Association.

Frankel is the director of the Appellate Litigation Clinic. Gordon and Zimmerman both teach Legal Methods I and II, along with other courses. 

On July 19, Zimmerman will give another presentation at the Association of Legal Writing Directors 2017 Biennial Conference, hosted by the University of Minnesota Law School. Zimmerman joins Professor Mary-Beth Moylan of the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in leading a discussion of how legal writing professors can maintain a collegial community in an atmosphere of change in the legal academy.