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Mary B. Trevor*
Abstract:
This article addresses how attorneys who supervise developing writers can achieve a manageable balance between their competing duties of client representation and supervision. While often excellent writers themselves, practicing attorneys are rarely trained to supervise the writing process. Moreover, their primary professional obligations pull them in other directions, and the time investment required for working with developing writers may leave supervisors feeling significant pressure about meeting their client-representation obligations. At the same time, however, their charges are embarking on a professional writing career and engaging in a particularly intensive phase of writing development—a phase whose success may well depend on a dedicated supervisor. In response to the supervision vs. representation challenge, this article focuses on how to provide a key aspect of supervision—feedback—in time and cost-efficient ways. In particular, it will provide helpful background information and step- by-step suggestions for practicing attorneys who supervise developing legal writers.
* Associate Professor and Director, Legal Research and Writing Program, Hamline University School of Law. I would like to thank my colleagues at Hamline Law and in the national legal writing community for their many insights and the collegiality they have provided in the years I have taught legal writing. I also extend my continuing thanks for the excellent supervision I received as a novice legal writer when I practiced at the law firm of Leonard, Street and Deinard (now Stinson Leonard Street) in Minneapolis, Minnesota.