Law Professor Lucy Jewel has been selected to lead the College of Law’s Legal Writing Program.
Jewel said as the program’s new director she will focus on better connecting the process of legal writing to the process of legal research.
“I think there’s a lot of room for synergy here,” she said. “We can do a better job of identifying the core pieces of knowledge that law students need to master in order to write well, and then focus on delivering quality instruction for each piece.”
Jewel, who has been teaching law-related courses for more than ten years, is a former commercial litigator.
She frequently presents on legal writing, legal education, and professionalism topics at national and international academic conferences. Her scholarship focuses on the intersections between technology, law, culture, and rhetoric, and her articles have appeared in the Maryland Law Review, Columbia Journal of Gender & Law, Yale Journal of Law & Technology, and the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, and Technology.
College of Law Dean Melanie Wilson said she’s pleased to have someone with Jewel’s experience and commitment leading this effort.
“Professor Jewel is an excellent professor and scholar, and a tribute to our college,” Wilson said. “I look forward to working with her in this new role and to supporting her efforts to affect change and improvement in our students’ writing.”
Jewel said she plans to first observe all the moving parts in the program, seek input from professors who teach in the program, and then make recommendations about how to make the program more unified.
“Legal writing is one of the important skills for lawyers, regardless of practice area,” Jewel said. “I want graduates of the College of Law to be known for their legal writing prowess. In this way, College of Law graduates will be very attractive to legal employers.”
Jewel, a native of Memphis, also looks forward to potentially having an impact on the legal profession specifically in the state of Tennessee.
“I am a proud Tennessee lawyer,” she said. “One of the things I am most excited about is the impact I can have by educating new generations of Tennessee lawyers.”