2007 Survey Results
Association of Legal Writing Directors/ Legal Writing Institute
This report of the results of the 2007ALWD/LWI national survey of legal writing programs includes data about the operation of legal research and writing programs during the 2006-2007 academic year from 181 U.S. law schools, representing over 90% of all ABA accredited law schools.
As in past years, this report is admittedly a somewhat inexact composite picture of many varied, complex, and unique programs. Nevertheless, the survey results show common practices, trends, and other valuable information about the current state of legal writing training in American law schools.
The survey report also includes data from the 2004, 2005, and 2006 surveys for comparison purposes. Please be aware that some year-to-year variations show real changes in legal writing programs from prior years, while others merely reflect changes in the respondent group. Please also be aware that the report includes some recomputation of prior years’ reported average values. Finally, please note that this year’s report for the first time also includes median values for most of the salary data. We have chosen to include median values to more accurately reflect the “market” for salaries in various categories, since median values are less susceptible to skew based on a few extraordinarily high or low salaries in a category.
Once again, we thank all who participated in this year’s survey. Your time and effort are valuable to all of us.
Phil Frost and Ken Chestek
Survey Committee Co-Chair