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SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL IN LOS ANGELES ANNOUNCED AS NEW HEADQUARTERS FOR SCRIBES—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LEGAL WRITERS Los Angeles, CA – March 20, 2023 – Scribes—The American Society of Legal Writers, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting legal writing and excellence in legal scholarship, has selected Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles to serve as its new Headquarters.

Later this month, Scribes plans to launch a Canvas site to provide outstanding content about legal writing to its members, law-review editors, and other interested individuals. To accelerate content development and showcase talent from various parts of the legal profession, the Scribes Board has created the Inaugural Scribes Fellows Program to attract attorneys, judges, academics, and librarians willing to produce original, engaging content related to legal writing. For the inaugural year, which will run from June 2023 through May 2024, Scribes will select up to three Fellows.  For more information on compensation and the application process, please click here to read more.

Each year, the Texas Bar Foundation honors those who exemplify the highest standards of the legal profession. This year, they have awarded their Outstanding Law Review Article Award to John Browning, Scribes President. Learn more about the award by clicking here.

Scribes and the American Inns of Court have worked together as education partners to develop a series of courses on effective legal writing. The series consists of four one to two-hour courses featuring presenters who will unpack the key ingredients of effective legal writing and offer perspectives on how practitioners and judges can bring greater clarity and vigor to their written work. Presenters will discuss strategies for enhancing readability and expression, as well as offer practical tips to help today’s legal writers capture and hold the readers’ attention. Find more information here.

This March, Scribes plans to launch a Canvas site to provide outstanding content about legal writing to its members, law-review editors, and other interested individuals. To accelerate content development and showcase talent from various parts of the legal profession, the Scribes Board has created the Scribes Fellows Program to attract attorneys, judges, academics, and librarians willing to produce original, engaging content related to legal writing. For the inaugural year, which will run from June 2023 through May 2024, Scribes will select up to five Fellows. Fellows must be an individual member of Scribes or work for an institutional member. For more information on compensation and the application process, please see this document.

Registration for the Scribes National Conference for Law Review Editors is now open. This virtual conference will help guide new law review and journal editors as they plan their upcoming year. The conference will begin with a plenary session titled “Top Tips from Top Authors.” Confirmed panelists include Professor Richard Delgado (Seattle), Professor Martha Minow (Harvard), and Devon Carbado (UCLA), all of whom are first-rate legal scholars with expertise in legal scholarship. The plenary will be followed by three concurrent sessions featuring law professors, outgoing and recent editors, and other experts. The registration fee for the conference includes 12 months of access to the complete set of 2022-2023 Scribes Second Sunday webinar series recordings. This conference will be on March 26, 2023 from 1:00-7:30 EDT. More information is available here.

We are now accepting nominations for the Book Award, which will recognize the best book on a legal subject published in 2022. Please contact Philip Johnson at scribeslegalwriters@gmail.com for more information on how to make a nomination.

We are now accepting nominations for our Law-Review Award, which will recognize an excellent student comment or note with a publication date between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023. Each journal may nominate one comment or note. For a nomination form or more information, contact Philip Johnson at scribeslegalwriters@gmail.com.

Dean Darby Dickerson and Professor Brooke Bowman have edited The Scribes Manual for Law Review Editors. This book is “the definitive source for student-editors who seek to excel in their positions and improve their journals.” ​Read a review here, and order a copy here.

Board member Katrina Lee can be found discussing representation of Asian American women in media in a Bloomberg Law column on the Netflix series “Partner Track.” Read the column here. ​Professor Lee is the Director of Program on Dispute Resolution at Ohio State’s Mortiz College of Law.