UCI Law Ranks No. 9 for Legal Writing by U.S. News & World Report

05-04-2021

The University of California, Irvine School of Law (UCI Law) is thrilled to announce it has ranked No. 9 for Legal Writing by U.S. News & World Report. UCI Law focuses on hands-on training and experiential learning from the moment students begin their first year. The Law School consistently ranks at the top for reputation among law professors nationwide, and it has emerged as a preeminent law school for clinical, practical, and experiential training.

UCI Law seeks to do the best job in the country of training students for the practice of law at the highest levels of the profession. In the first year, students take a comprehensive six-credit course in Lawyering Skills that covers a broad range of topics, including legal writing, research, reasoning, oral advocacy, fact investigation, client counseling and interviewing, contract drafting, and negotiation. Students also take an additional legal research course in their first year. Furthermore, the law school offers a number of professional skills programs in which upper-level students can learn valuable skills that lawyers need from the first day of practice. These skills include legal research, writing and editing, and oral advocacy. Finally, the law school provides a range of upper-division skills courses covering both litigation and transactional law.

The core Lawyering Skills faculty and staff includes world-renowned, lauded experts in their fields. Rachel Croskery-Roberts, Professor and Associate Dean for Lawyering Skills, for example, has published articles on pedagogy and has co-authored a textbook that approaches Employment Discrimination from a skills perspective. She was recently re-elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD). ALWD is one of the preeminent national professional associations for lawyering skills and legal writing professors. 

In addition, UCI Law Professor of Lawyering Skills Grace C. Tonner was the recipient of the 2020 Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research Award from Association of American Law Schools (AALS). AALS is a nonprofit association that consists of nearly 180 law schools – its mission is to uphold and advance excellence in legal education. 

UCI Law Professor of Lawyering Skills Cindy Thomas Archer is a recipient of the Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award for 2020-2022. Recipients are selected for their deep expertise and demonstrated abilities to advance inclusive excellence and they represent diverse disciplines and approaches to championing diversity, equity, and inclusion in their scholarship, pedagogy, and service. Prof. Archer is a regular presenter and invited panelist on topics related to experiential education, cultural competence in lawyering skills curriculum, and clinical education.