As of the 2024-25 academic year, UW Law’s Legal Research and Writing Program is now known as the Legal Analysis, Advocacy, and Writing Program. This new name more accurately reflects the content of both first-year and advanced courses.    

Director Kim Peterson explains:   

“Our professors teach high-level analytical skills to first-year students. Students are taught to analyze and research the law with depth, accuracy and precision and then convey that analysis and research in written documents that are clear, concise and well-organized.   

In the spring students are taught how to advocate for a position in a way that is accurate yet persuasive and compelling. Likewise, in advanced courses, the professors teach students the analysis, advocacy and writing skills needed for more complex legal writing, including transactional drafting, judicial opinion writing and pretrial motion work.  

Further, as generative artificial intelligence takes a stronger role in pure writing tasks, the new program name conveys more accurately the foundational legal analysis and advocacy skills we teach in our legal writing courses.” 

Submitted by Law School News on October 4, 2024

This article appears in the categories: Features, Legal Research & Writing

Related employee profiles: Kim M. Peterson