Legal Writing Professor Receives National Grant

The University of Kentucky College of Law is pleased to announce that Jane Bloom Grisé, Director of Academic Success and a Legal Writing Professor, was one of only four recipients for the national Legal Writing Scholarship Grant, a $5,000 grant provided by the Legal Writing Institute (LWI), the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD), and LexisNexis. 

Her proposal, Does Critical Reading Instruction Lead to Improved Legal Writing?, focuses on the importance of critical reading skills for a law student’s success. Grisé’s study hypothesizes that students with stronger critical reading skills will also be stronger writers. This fall, all first-year students were given the opportunity to participate in the study and are being divided into participant and control groups. The participant group will receive eight sessions of critical reading instruction. The study will compare the writing performance of the participant and control groups on regular writing assignments in the 1L Legal Writing and Research course this fall.

“This grant is an exciting opportunity for me to research best practices in legal writing instruction and to create a curriculum that will hopefully enhance our students’ ability to analyze legal principles and communicate more effectively,” said Grisé. 

She spent the summer months designing the critical reading curriculum, will conduct the study this fall, and compile her results into an article by summer 2015.

LWI/ALWD/LexisNexis annually award the Legal Writing Scholarship Grants for teachers of legal research and writing. These grants reflect the three organizations’ commitment to the professional development of legal research and writing professionals.