Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Chicago Legal Innovation and Technology Meetup at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. I spoke about how LegalRnD is training 21st Century lawyers, using a project assessing a pilot Eviction Diversion Program (EDP) that I led in the 54A District Court in Lansing, Michigan as an example. Because many people asked questions about the project after my talk, I’ve drafted this post to describe the project in greater detail.

 

Other speakers at this Meetup: Carla Goldstein, former AGC at BMO Harris and member of the founding team of SeyfarthLean; Jim Lupo, Director of the Center for Practice Engagement and Innovation at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law; and Dennis Garcia, Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft

Initiating the EDP

This project began in early 2017 when Judge Alderson reached out to Dan Linna, Director of LegalRnD and Professor of Law in Residence at MSU College of Law, to ask for LegalRnD’s help implementing and assessing an Eviction Diversion Pilot Program she planned to implement in her court. Professor Linna suggested bringing on two students and me (in my capacity as LegalRnD fellow and Innovation Counsel) to work on this project during the summer and fall of 2017. Nick Gamber, Andrew Sanders, and I completed this LegalRnD project and wrote a paper in connection with Professor Linna’s Quantitative Analysis for Lawyers class.

Bringing LegalRnD Skills to 54A

One of the great things about this project was that it allowed my team and me to utilize many of the core competencies we emphasize in the LegalRnD curriculum. We strive to replace legal industry anecdotes about what purportedly works and does not with data-driven conclusions, measuring the effectiveness of legal service delivery. We also start with identifying the customer and an understanding of what they value. Additionally, while we set big goals, we strive for continuous improvements, which may start small but will accumulate and compound over time. The following components of the EDP project show how we aimed to achieve this.

Project Management

To allow ourselves the freedom to iterate quickly, fail quickly, and learn quickly, we prefer an Agile project management style over a traditional waterfall method. However, there are key components that build the foundation of any successful project, such as: (1) communication with the stakeholders to understand the challenge and scope; (2) a project charter; and (3) a way to track the workflow. For the EDP, we instituted the following:

  • Project Charter — a guiding document that addressed the scope of the project, a list of key stakeholders, project milestones, and constraints, assumptions, risks, and dependencies. This was an essential document that ensured our understanding of the project was in line with Judge Alderson’s expectations. We consulted and adjusted these key documents frequently as we moved through the project.
  • Stakeholder Interviews — before the EDP began, we interviewed those who would be impacted by the program, including court personnel, landlords, and tenant groups.
  • Kanban Board — as discussed in a previous post, Kanban boards are an incredibly useful tool to control workflow. For this project and others, I designed Kanban boards to track our action items, goals, and deliverables.
My kanban board

User Testing

A key component of the EDP was a flier that we sent out with the Summons and Complaint informing tenants of various ways to seek legal help, that they may be eligible for free legal aid and funding opportunities at court, and the consequences of failing to appear for their hearing. Our idea was that this would reduce defaults. But we did not just execute on our ideas. We did user testing to validate our assumptions and improve the flier. In doing so, we worked with Margaret Hagan, Founder of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford, to create a flier. Then, Professor Linna and I took that flier to the court before the EDP kickoff date and talked with tenants. We asked tenants open ended questions to better understand their first impressions and what actions they thought they would take upon receiving this flier. Margaret took this tenant feedback and created a revised draft of the flier.

Flier created by Margaret Hagan

Data Analysis & Visualization

Because we had been asked to assess the program as well as help implement it, data analysis and visualization was a large part of this project. After discussions with Judge Alderson, our team and I decided to focus on three key metrics: formal eviction rates (i.e., how many landlords came back for a final writ of eviction); default rate; and dismissal rate. Because only Judge Alderson piloted the EDP, we had a natural experiment. Finding differences between groups, we conducted tests to determine if the differences were statistically significant. In other words, the statistical tests allowed us to determine if the differences were large enough to reject the null hypothesis that the EDP had no effect. (We continue to gather and analyze data, but so far the differences have been statistically significant, supporting the alternative hypothesis that the EDP is reducing eviction rates and default rates.) Finally, I used Tableau to create data visualizations. Not only is Tableau an excellent tool for creating data visualizations, it also avoids data integrity issues that sometimes arise with other tools, including inadvertent changes to data.

It was a great privilege to be able to work on this project and see several LegalRnD core competencies at work. I look forward to sharing more in the future.

Post written by Hether Macfarlane.


The most recent article from Ian Gallacher, winner of the 2018 Thomas Blackwell Award, is called My Grandmother Was Mrs. Palsgraf (find it on SSRN). Just as Ian has found a connection between his grandmother and an iconic name from our 1L experience, I propose a connection between Ian’s article and a podcast from RadioLab at WNYC.

Ian’s article focuses on what he sees as the “dehumanization of the 1L experience” and is a plea, among other things, to help students view the plaintiffs and defendants in the cases they read for class as “deserving of our compassion, our empathy, and our respect.” The podcast I recommend, “More Perfect,” presents famous cases in a way that the creators think of as “human, surprising, cinematic.” Most of the episodes consider an important case decided by the Supreme Court by looking at the people involved, not just at the legal issues.  Listening to the podcast, I learned more about the Dred Scott case itself, but also learned about a gathering of Dred Scott’s descendants and the descendants of Justice Taney, who wrote the infamous opinion. I have met the plaintiffs in Craig v. Boren, the case that established the intermediate scrutiny standard, and learned more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s connection to that case. I have learned about the background to District of Columbia v. Heller and the development of Second Amendment jurisprudence. And that is just part of the second season.

To get back to the connection, like Ian, I always try to get my students to think about the people in the cases we use in my LRW classes and to think about the “clients” they write to and for. I will start recommending More Perfect to them as a way to encourage them to think about the plaintiffs and defendants in the cases they read in my classes and their other classes. Perhaps listening to these podcasts will help my 2Ls who are taking constitutional law understand the various levels of scrutiny in First Amendment cases, a concept that seems to be eluding some of them. More importantly, perhaps the students will begin to think of their future careers as involving clients and opposing parties “deserving of our compassion, our empathy, and our respect.” And, at the least, they will find a way to learn about the law that is itself both informative and entertaining.

If you have not discovered this podcast, I recommend it to you as both fascinating and often enlightening.

 

Maybe you know her too, she’s been quite the ‘talk of the town’ for the past few years…Just kidding, I’m actually one of “those people” who has an Echo in almost every room of my home because it is a genuinely great gadget that has proved itself to be useful in completing simple tasks. Though I rave about Echos, one of my pet peeves is when people suggest that devices like Alexa have human-level intelligence or artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI would be a machine that is capable of emulating the human mind to such an extent that it matches or exceeds it. For goodness’ sake, almost every time I ask her a question (that is not pre-programmed) she responds with, “Sorry, I couldn’t find the answer to your question.” Then I instinctively pick up my phone and attempt to retrieve the answer from Siri. *Sigh* Millennials, I know.

So where did I find this dream squashing mentality that Alexa is a glorified alarm clock and kitchen timer with whom I play Jeopardy? Only from the dream squasher himself, Professor Kenneth Grady. In his AI class at MSU Law, we were taught that AI is developing rapidly, but there is also a great deal of ‘smoke’ surrounding the phenomenon. All of this AI hype, in turn, has generated plenty of unrealistic expectations. To quote Bill Gates “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.” I believe AI has incredible potential and will one day spread across all aspects of our lives, but we are not there yet.

In regards to where we stand today, many people are contributing to the AI hype, rather than researching into what is really going on. We are constantly seeing business plans liberally sprinkled with references to machine learning, deep learning, neural nets, and other forms of the technology, with little connection to its real capabilities.[1] Stating that a product is “AI-powered” during a business pitch, for example, doesn’t make it any more effective, but with all of the AI hype today, just the reference will enhance the product’s following. At most the product has narrow AI, the ability to operate within a limited pre-defined range where there is no genuine intelligence, no self-awareness, no life (just like my BFF Alexa). Yet so many companies continue to produce ‘smoke’ with their AI references.

We need to take a step back and cut through all of the ‘smoke’ to recognize the current state of AI, the real potential of AI, its practical implications, and the barriers to its adoption.

Until next time,

ASW
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[1] Mcafee, Andrew, and Erik Brynjolfsson. “The Business of Artificial Intelligence.” Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review, 18 July 2017. Web. 20 July 2017.

A (Very) Brief Introduction to Kanban

The purpose of a Kanban system is to create a visual representation of a workflow that ultimately improves the quality and percentage of tasks completed, minimizes waste, and highlights areas where a process can be improved.

Image obtained from “Kanban Reference Guide and Learning Center”

A Kanban board is segmented into derivations of three basic columns, called “lanes”: (1) To Do; (2) Doing; (3) Done. The lanes can be renamed to fit the needs of the project. To learn more about Kanban, I encourage you to visit everydaykanban.com.

Managing My Workflow

Using the principles above, I created a Kanban board to track my own workflow. The great thing about a Kanban system is that it can be tailored to the needs of any project or organization. The goals for my system were to keep my teams:

  1. On track — ensure that tasks are completed on time; minimize the work in process; understand the dependencies of each task;
  2. Organized — inform everyone about which tasks are due, overdue, and done; who is responsible for each task; which phase or phases of our project we are in;
  3. Empowered — reduce the number of instances where team members feel overwhelmed; promote work satisfaction and morale;
  4. Motivated — create a drive to perform, and pride in accomplishing a goal; and
  5. Accountable — create a sense of ownership of a task and responsibility to the team
My kanban board

At first, this seemed like a lofty goal for one white board and a few (dozen) sticky notes. However, I put every detail of this board to work so that each aspect contributes to my overall goals. Through this system of lanes, name tags, due dates, and red flags, my team is:

  1. On track because — we can easily keep track of where each task is in the workflow, and are continually reminded to reduce our work in process. If there are too many sticky notes in one of the “work in process” lanes, we know that we need to stop, ask ourselves why tasks are building up, and finish a task before starting another one.
  2. Organized because — if a team member has a question about what he or she is responsible for, what is coming up due or is overdue, or how close we are to meeting our goal, they know exactly where to look. This avoids confusion, rework, and incomplete assignments.
  3. Empowered because — when tasks are presented as a numbered list, or, worse yet, verbally rained-down on a team member all at once, completing a project can feel overwhelming. However, when tasks are presented as pieces of an overall workflow, with separate team members accountable for each task, team members feel more relaxed and empowered to complete their assignments well and on time.
  4. Motivated because — as the General Counsel for VillageMD, Wendy Rubas, said during her visit to LegalRnD, “Data triggers people.” Team members can physically see that they are behind on their goal, and are spurred to drive the numbers up. When the goal is met, it allows us to pause and have a moment of celebration and pride for accomplishing a goal. This also tells us it’s time to set new, more ambitious goals.
  5. Accountable because — a team member sees his or her name and a due date on a card in one of the “work in process” lanes, and he or she knows that if it is not completed on time, it will receive a red flag. At the next meeting, that team member is asked to explain why something was not completed on time. This is not done as punishment. Rather, it is used to determine how we, as a team, can improve our process so that delays and bottlenecks in work are minimized.

In the future, I may look to an online Kanban platform such as Trello or Leankit to help manage multiple projects or dispersed team members. For now, though, I am very pleased with how I have been able to adapt the Kanban methodology to my organization. I look forward to exploring other project management and process improvement tools in the future.

Corporate Legal Departments are Using Analytics to Evaluate Legal Services

Whether it is measuring the performance of an in-house team or measuring the performance of outside counsel, corporate legal departments are using data driven analytics to evaluate legal processes. Wendy Rubas, General Counsel of Village MD, began measuring her performance when she realized that in a business atmosphere no one cared that she won summary judgement (a big deal for lawyers). Wendy spoke at the Financial Legal Technology Conference at Chicago Kent and also this week to students at Michigan State College of Law explaining the evolution of the scorecards she created to evaluate her team’s performance. Her goal was to effectively communicate to the business why it was paying its lawyers.

@bryangwilson

“When presenting data, lawyers think the format doesn’t matter…but it does.” Wendy spoke about the reality of implementing tech – she thought she would receive a positive response, but immediately everyone wanted to point out how it could be better.

Wendy refused to give up though, despite the lack of praise she received for all the work she prepared to show outcomes and make improvements. She’s the Oprah of legal tech! She’s open to discussing “faults” in the analytics because that means improvement.

@Hllawtech

Since then, she has started using technology to make her scorecards automatic, revised her evaluation factors, and now is measuring processes like contract review.

Outside lawyer performance is being quantitatively analyzed as well. Vince Cordo, Global Litigation Sourcing Officer at Shell, spoke at Financial Legal Tech conference about using key performance indicators to build an understanding of standards in-house counsel expect from work given to outside law firms. He focused on how Shell is quantifying factors such as communication between the business and the law firms, turnaround times, and quality of outside work. “Shell legal is . . . run as a business to ensure there is single point accountability for budget and results.1” He showed how data was gathered through programs like Excel and Microsoft Access.

@LawQuant

 

 

Bottom line – in-house counsel is using data driven analytics to measure value delivery and outcomes are important. In the words of Pamela Morgan:

“For people who say ‘I don’t like math’ my advice is ‘Get comfortable.’”

Check out Justin Evan’s blog for more of the themes at the FinLegalTech Conference

 

I am three months into a year-long fellowship with LegalRnD—The Center for Legal Services Innovation at MSU College of Law. I could not be happier with my decision to pursue this as my first job out of law school. I came to law school with a background in chemistry, and, though I chose not to pursue science as a profession, I was inspired by the idea of improving legal-service delivery using scientific methods and a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach. With this blog, I hope to illustrate some of the many ways in which LegalRnD is using these principles to re-engineer legal-service delivery, and how I am using them to become a more successful leader.

How LegalRnD is Training 21st Century Lawyers

If you’re reading this blog, you have may have seen Above the Law’s article declaring that “Michigan State College of Law ranks number one.” MSU Law and LegalRnD earned such high praise in part because LegalRnD is dedicated to training 21st Century, T-Shaped lawyers, as described by MSU Law alumna R. Amani Smathers.

“Twentieth-century lawyers prided themselves on, and were valued for, their deep legal expertise. In the technology-driven 21st century, clients demand more—and the T-shaped lawyer is better equipped to provide it.” –R. Amani Smathers, The 21st Century T-Shaped Lawyer

20th Century, I-Shaped lawyers had deep legal expertise, but little training in other disciplines. In 2017, clients demand more from their lawyers. Deep legal knowledge must be supplemented by a working knowledge of such disciplines as technology, business, data analytics, data privacy, process improvement, and project management in order to better serve clients and ensure thriving practices. Because LegalRnD is teaching these “top of the ‘T’” skills, its alumni are better equipped not only to face the challenges of an evolving legal industry, but also to be leaders in the 21st century.

Curriculum

LegalRnD offers a full curriculum of classes focused on improving legal-service delivery through a people-process-technology approach. This includes Delivering Legal Services: New Legal Landscape, where Professor Ken Grady  employs a tactile approach to teaching such skills as Design Thinking and process mapping.

Students prototyping in Professor Grady’s Delivering Legal Services class.

Another student favorite is Quantitative Analysis for Lawyers, where Professor and Director of LegalRnD, Dan Linna, introduces students to various modes of quantitative thinking for data-driven law practice. Students learn data analysis tools like Excel and are introduced to Python, Jupyter Notebook, and Tableau. The course includes several hands-on exercises that illustrate the possibilities for data-analytics. A primary goal is to demystify tools like expert systems and artificial intelligence so that students can recognize how they can be used to not only become more efficient but also to produce greater value and obtain better outcomes for clients.

Research Projects

Bolstered by Professor Linna’s idea that law schools should be used as labs for innovation, LegalRnD also provides opportunities for students to conduct research and development and, in many cases, work with outside clients to transform the delivery of legal services.

Events

Finally, students are continuously exposed to new ideas and opportunities to innovate through LegalRnD’s diverse co-curricular workshops, speaker series, conferences, and hackathons.

Research, Development, and Events Currently Underway at LegalRnD

Research & Development

The research projects conducted at LegalRnD are more than academic exercises. Students work in the field to help create more efficient legal organizations, close the access-to-justice gap, and innovate in ways that are user-centric and data-driven. I am currently part of two such ongoing LegalRnD projects:

  • Eviction Diversion Pilot Program–54A District Court, Lansing, Michigan–Chief Judge Louise Alderson contacted LegalRnD with an idea for a project: implement an eviction diversion pilot program in her court and gather outcome data to improve and assess the program. This is a perfect opportunity for the two students, Nick Gamber and Drew Sanders, who are working with Professor Linna and me on this project to apply several LegalRnD core competencies: project management, process improvement, empirical research, and data analysis. I am excited to share more in the future about this process.
Working with Margaret Hagan at 54A District Court in Lansing.
  • SOLID Collaborative Innovation–At the SOLID Summit in September, Professor Linna and other members of the legal community formed a workgroup with a goal in mind: to create a framework for innovation in the legal industry. Tying in the idea of law schools as labs for innovation, several students are now working on projects with outside clients. Students Anita Western, Joe Mullin, and Matt Gardner are working with Professor Linna on an “Internet of Things” project with Maya Markovich from Dentons’ NextLawLabs, Milos Kresojevic from Freshfields, and Dennis Kennedy from Mastercard. Students Danielle Chirdon and Justin Evans are working with Professor Linna on a blockchain project with Lisa Bryzcki from Northwestern Mutual, and Kate Simpson from Bennett Jones LLP, with focuses ranging from change management, to Internet of Things and Blockchain.

Events

So far this year, we have had the privilege of hosting amazing professionals for lunchtime and evening presentations. We have many more planned for the coming year:

  • Amani Smathers, MSU Law alumna and Legal Solutions Architect at DWT De Novo, kicked off the semester with a lunchtime talk on what it means to be T-Shaped, and the skills and technology employed by modern lawyers.

    Brian Kuhn speaks at MSU Law

  • Brian Kuhn, Co-creator and Global Co-leader of IBM Watson Legal, spent the day at MSU Law, engaging in a prototyping session with Professor Linna’s Quantitative Analysis class, and demystified artificial intelligence during his presentation on IBM Watson’s transformation of how legal work is performed.
  • Several MSU Law students attended the Chicago Legal Innovation Meetup on September 30, where they had the opportunity to network and listen to presentations of several thought leaders in the legal innovation space.
  • On October 11, LegalRnD hosted Craig Glidden, the General Counsel for General Motors, who discussed the evolution of corporate legal departments, including technology’s role in that transformation.
  • On October 17, the Honigman law firm ran its periodic value initiative meeting live from LegalRnD. Students had the benefit of seeing how the firm conducts its value meeting. Additionally, because Honigman had graciously included LegalRnD student presentations in its agenda, attendees also got to hear about some of the research projects underway at MSU Law.
Legal Hack Chicago Innovation Meetup
  • On October 19, several students and MSU Law alumni attended the Fin(Legal)Tech conference hosted by Illinois Tech–Chicago-Kent College of Law. The many enlightening presentations included themes on how to learn from the finance industry’s past to improve the legal industry’s future.
  • On November 5, Pamela Morgan, Founder of Third Key Solutions, will be leading a weekend workshop on Bitcoin, blockchain, and smart contracts.
  • On November 6, Wendy Rubas, General Counsel for Village MD, will be giving a lunchtime talk on data-driven law practices and leading theQuantitative Analysis class in a data exercise.
  • In February, Margaret Hagan, Director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford, will be leading a design thinking workshop and giving a lunchtime talk.

One of our goals at LegalRnD is to expose our students to the main ways to get engaged in the legal industry, leveraging innovation and technology to improve legal-service delivery. We’re thrilled to present so many such opportunities to our students, and I’m grateful to be a part of these activities. I look forward to further discussing these projects as they develop.

 

 Co-Written by Justin Evans

The 2017 Financial Legal Technology Conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law was a high intensity day packed with information from over twenty leaders in the crosshairs of technology in the legal and financial industry. In order to attempt to give a more accurate overview of the day’s events, Jay Evans and I will be releasing a series of posts summarizing some of the main themes we saw throughout the day.

“Innovation means people sitting at the same table, talking the same language, with a common set of goals.”

 

 

 

 

“The field of law is moving too [slow],” David Cambria, Global Director of Legal Operations for Archer Daniels Midland. “The law looks like finance 50 years ago” Dan Katz, Director of the Law Lab at Illinois Tech Chicago College of Law. Katz opened the conference with establishing two major branches of Fintech: (1) removing the socially meaningless friction of “that’s the way we have always done something” and (2) how to characterize (price) risk using legal technology. Lawyers tend to think of themselves as risk adverse, but “it is meaningless in business to say something is risky.” Being a lawyer means helping to decide which risk is worth taking. Corporate clients need attorneys who speak their language and who understand their goals. Unfortunately, attorneys have not been properly trained during law school for optimal use by their corporate clients. Throughout the day, the need for law schools to alter their approach to training law students by freeing up the capacity for alternative streams of courses was a reoccurring theme. Lucy Bassli, Assistant General Counsel of Microsoft, spoke on how the traditional education of law and constraints on the unauthorized practice of law is a huge impediment to innovation. Why should educators care? Because they are preparing for their future careers

(Law + Tech + Design + Delivery) = education for the 21st century lawyer, Alexander Rabanal, Associate Director of The Law Lab at Chicago-Kent.

photo by Chase Hertel

The delivery of legal services is evolving due to changes in market demand. Business partners and in-house legal teams are redefining the relationships with outside attorneys, requiring them to embrace the use of technology and improve their current processes. These clients are asking for greater value, mutual benefits and risks, and multidisciplinary teams. Is the current way things are done, the best way? The whole goal is to do the work better, faster, and cheaper. “Sometimes the best lawyer, is no lawyer at all.” Stephanie Corey , Chief of Staff and Legal Operations Senior Director, Uplevel Ops. Whether the tasks assigned to certain roles, in a current process, is the most efficient method of conducting a legal service is a question law firms may benefit from asking in the wake of changing demands from their clients. “You don’t need a surgeon to draw blood at clinic, like you don’t need a partner to do the work of a paralegal.” Applying process improvement techniques like lean thinking and putting people in leadership roles to work alongside attorneys, may help to improve current processes and help law firms maintain clients. “But please, stop using the term non-lawyer. They are the secret sauce.”

 

Check out Christopher Rollyson’s Storify for more pictures and tweets during the event!#finlegaltech

ABA’s 10 legal-tech lessons from dollars to doughnuts at Fin (Legal) Tech

Follow me on twitter @DanielleChirdon

 

 

Related image

 

My new podcast has just posted on CAP·impact, the McGeorge Capital Center for Law & Policy Blog on telling a compelling story. In this In Practice podcast, I discuss how telling a compelling story can help an advocate clarify points and simplify complex topics. To be able to tell these stories, an advocate’s skills are greatly enhanced by a solid grasp of how to effectively use imagery, simile, and metaphor; the podcast explains further and provides examples. I hope you’ll give it a listen and let me know what you think.

Welcome! This is StrangeLaw, Esq.: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legal Technology. I’m Eli Edwards, and I’m an Emerging Technologies Research Librarian at Santa Clara University School of Law. Per the job title, I wanted to have a space to discuss legaltech issues and how Santa Clara Law is approaching them. Now, on with the show!

My inaugural post is, most fittingly, about robot lawyers. Of all of the talk about chatbot lawyers and AI lawyers and robot AI lawyers – I figured ‘robot lawyers’ were just a bit of hyperbole, an appealing but inaccurate analogy for automated legal services distributed over the Internet.

But no! There are robot lawyers. Or, a robot that dispenses basic legal advice and gives directions in a courthouse:

Beijing court now has a legal robot that provides advice

The robot, named Xiaofa, stands 1.46 meters tall and provides legal advice and guidance in a child’s voice.

“Xiaofa explains complicated legal terms in everyday language to help the public better understand legal definitions,” said Du Xiangyang, founder and CEO of AEGIS Data, which designed Xiaofa. “We used a child’s voice to ease the tense emotions of litigants who come here for help.”

The robot can move its head and wave its hands as instructions show up on screen, and it can guide people to the exact service window for litigation services.

The appearance of Xiaofa was a big move for the Beijing court, as the capital works to build a “smart” court system. Over 40,000 litigation questions and 30,000 legal issues can be answered by the robot, according to the court.

So, yeah, the future is here. Time to buckle up.

H/T to Keith R. Lee at Associate’s Mind/LawyerSlack

Post Written by: Hether Macfarlane

The Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute announced today that Professor Ian Gallagher, Professor of Law and Director of Legal Communication and Research at Syracuse University School of Law, is the 2018 recipient of the Thomas Blackwell Award.

Ian Gallacher

The Award is given annually to someone who has made outstanding contributions to the field of Legal Writing, both in the classroom and within the profession. The award will be presented during the AALS annual meeting, on Friday, January 5, at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina, 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Ian has always been one of the truly nice people in a field crowded with nice people. I honestly cannot remember when I first met Ian, but from the beginning he impressed me as a gentle soul with great intelligence and many talents. I was fortunate enough to be asked to review one of Ian’s law review articles as part of his promotion to Associate Professor at Syracuse. While we have many interesting and talented people in the field, I don’t know of anyone else who could have written an article entitled Conducting the Constitution: Justice Scalia, Textualism, and the Eroica Symphony. I found it enlightening on both Justice Scalia and the art of conducting. While Ian’s book “A Form and Style Manual for Lawyers” is somewhat less “enlightening,” it is full of sound advice on writing in general, on writing mechanics such as punctuation, and on practice-oriented formatting advice for both litigation and business documents. Given Ian’s broad interests and many accomplishments, it’s no wonder he was chosen for this year’s Blackwell Award.