Elon Law scholar shares best practices for teaching legal writing

Professor Sue Liemer’s research over the past year has been showcased at national conferences and will be published in forthcoming journals and books that serve as resources for legal writing educators.

Professor Sue Liemer
Articles by the director of Elon Law’s Legal Method and Communication Program have been published or selected for inclusion in forthcoming resources for legal writing educators.

Professor Sue Liemer is a nationally recognized expert in legal writing who focuses some of her research on the scholarship of teaching and learning. Details of her recent work:

  • Participated in a 2017 law review symposium at the University of Detroit Mercy. Her paper, “Embodied Legal Education: Incorporating Another Part of Bloom’s Taxonomy,” which the law review selected for publication, encourages law professors to have some learning objectives for their courses that include psychomotor skills.
  • Delivered remarks in 2018 at the Association of American Law School’s annual meeting that served as the basis of an essay on supporting the language acquisition needs of international law students who have English as their second language. “How to Support International ESL Law Students When You Only Have a Few of Them” has been accepted for publication in the fall issue of Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research & Writing.
  • Recruited to write a new chapter focused on “Writing Across the Curriculum” for the ABA’s Sourcebook on Legal Writing Programs. Liemer was a primary author of the second edition, published in 2006. She previously taught at a law school with a WAC requirement and used that experience, as well as scholarship on writing across the curriculum in law schools, as the basis for this new chapter. The new edition is scheduled for publication in January 2019.       

About the Professor:

Professor Sue Liemer joined the Elon Law faculty in 2017 after 17 years as director of the Lawyering Skills Program at Southern Illinois University School of Law. She served from 1998-2000 as president of the Association of Legal Writing Directors and served a four-year term on the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute. She also created and co-edited the Legal Writing Professors’ Blog, which has twice been listed in the ABA Journal’s top law blogs.

Liemer earned a Bachelor of Arts in comparative literature from Princeton University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law. Her scholarship includes book chapters, law journal articles, and book reviews on legal writing education and the administration of legal writing programs. She has also written law journal articles on the legal rights of artists and occasionally teaches Art Law.  

Prior to her work in legal education, which included teaching positions at the University of Mississippi and Western New England University, Liemer worked as legal counsel for the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission.