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The 21^st Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) took place July 17 through 20 and was hosted by IU McKinney School of Law. Around 450 legal writing professors from across the country gathered to engage with colleagues and exchange ideas about teaching, scholarship, discipline-building, inclusion, well-being, professional development, and more.

IU McKinney Vice Dean Allison Martin and Professor Joel Schumm, the Carl M. Gray Professor of Law, served as site co-chairs. Law school members of the site committee included Professor Jim Dimitri, Professor Cynthia Adams, Professor Sarah Parks, Assistant Dean for External Affairs Elizabeth Allington, and Associate Director of Institutional Reporting and Scholarship Administration Amber Morgan Walker.

In the above photo are members of the IU McKinney legal writing faculty at a reception at the Indiana State Museum during the conference. From left are Professor Parks, Professor Schumm, Professor Dimitri, and Vice Dean Martin.

“We are so grateful to everyone at your law school,” LWI president Abigail Perdue wrote in a thank you note to IU McKinney Dean Karen E. Bravo. Perdue is a professor of law at Wake Forest University School of Law. “Everyone was so gracious and accommodating. What a beautiful campus in such a convenient location.”

Presentations included discussions about artificial intelligence, the NextGen bar exam, and a panel comprised of members of the bench and bar on what legal writing programs should be teaching, among many other topics. Programming also included a full day of presentations for the bench and bar. Topics included a primer for new lawyers, remote lawyering and the need for mindful technology, and new developments in AI, among other subjects.

Programming on well-being and serve Saturday were two new features of the conference. Well-being topics included how to foster professional identity, improve mental health, interrupt bias for law students, and infuse well-being into legal writing courses. For the service component of the event, several LWI members spent time on the conference’s final day volunteering at IndyReads and the Ronald McDonald House.  

LWI was founded in 1985. It is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving legal communication by supporting the development of teaching and scholarly resources and establishing forums to discuss the study, teaching, and practice of professional legal writing. IU McKinney hosted the event in 2008.

In the photo, LWI conference attendees gather in the Steve Tuchman and Reed Bobrick Atrium at IU McKinney.