Temple University
First Year Program
Temple has a collaborative LRW program without a director. The program is taught by all full time teachers with no adjuncts. We have 7 full time faculty?Susan DeJarnatt, Ellie Margolis, Robin Nilon, Kathy Stanchi, Bonny Tavares, Kristen Murray and Lee Carpenter. All of our permanent faculty are on long term contracts and one is tenured. We all teach the first year LRW course, except for Robin, who teaches in Temple?s LLM program for international students. Temple also has a 2 year LLM program and the LLM Fellows teach LRW for 2 years.
Temple is proud that its LRW faculty enjoy equity with our casebook colleagues. Our scholarship on legal writing is highly valued and ?counts.? Our standards permit LRW faculty to have the opportunity for tenure, or job security commensurate with tenure as per ABA 405(c).
Our student load is 28-32 students.
We do not use a joint syllabus and have freedom to structure our courses but we have a commitment to focus the fall semester on predictive writing and the spring on persuasion. We all integrate research, including computer research, from the outset of the semester. Individual professors determine the details of their curricula. More details about our shared pedagogy are available in Ellie and Susan's article, available at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=887313.
Credits:
The LRW class is 2 credits per semester and is graded like the other first year classes.
Upper Level Programs and Courses
Each member of the Temple LRW faculty teaches an upper level class in the spring semester. The course is of our choosing and often our own design. We have offered a variety of courses, including advanced writing courses focused on pre-trial litigation, writing in the context of consumer bankruptcy, and advanced appellate advocacy; and substantive seminars including feminist jurisprudence, sexual orientation and the law, and public interest law. We all supervise students writing comments and case notes as members of the student law journals and we supervise students undertaking independent writing projects. Students at Temple must complete two upper level writing requirements in addition to passing first year LRW. They must satisfy a research paper writing requirement and a serial paper writing requirement, for a total of 10 credits of writing. The courses taught by LRW faculty all meet one of these requirements.
Faculty
In keeping with Temple Law School's commitment to equality, the Temple LRW faculty enjoy parity with their casebook colleagues in most ways. We enjoy equity in offices, support for scholarship and teaching and have highly competitive salaries. We serve on, and chair, important faculty committees including the Faculty Selection, Executive, Curriculum, International Programs and Disciplinary Committees. All LRW faculty now have the opportunity for long term job security in two ways, either tenure or 405(c) clinical tenure, depending on our level of scholarly production. The regulations recognize that the demands of LRW teaching might make the 6 year ?up or out? tenure process unsuitable for LRW teachers and so allow the LRW teacher more flexibility.
All our permanent faculty are now on long term contracts or tenured. All Temple LRW faculty have full voting rights commensurate with tenure track faculty.
LRW faculty members can and have taught in Temple?s international programs.
Web Links
The LRW Web Page: http://www.law.temple.edu/servlet/RetrievePage?site=TempleLaw&page=LRW_main
Other Information
Temple LRW faculty are active national citizens of legal writing, working hard to advance the profession. We serve on LWI and AWLD committees and regularly present at national and regional conferences. We are committed and productive scholars of legal writing.
Contacts
Susan DeJarnatt
215-204-8736
susan.dejarnatt@temple.edu
Or
Kathy Stanchi
215-204-8807
kathryn.stanchi@temple.edu
For a copy of Temple's Standards for Retention and Promotion of LRW Faculty contact Bonny Tavares, bonny.tavares@temple.edu