Legal Writing Institute

LWI Awards

Illustration representing recognition and achievement in legal writing

Recognizing Service, Scholarship, and Leadership

The Legal Writing Institute honors members of the legal writing community, both within and outside the organization, through several awards recognizing exceptional service, scholarship, leadership, and contributions to the discipline.

These awards celebrate individuals and groups whose work strengthens legal writing education, advances the study of legal communication, supports the legal writing community, and contributes meaningfully to the growth and mission of LWI.

Through these recognitions, LWI highlights the many ways members of the legal writing community contribute to the profession, including through scholarship, institutional leadership, mentoring, service, teaching, and sustained commitment to the development of legal writing as a discipline.

Explore the awards below to learn more about their purpose, current recipients, and the distinguished members of the community who have previously been recognized.

 

The Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing

Jointly created with the Association of Legal Writing Directors, this award honors the life of our colleague, Tom Blackwell. The award is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to improve the field of legal writing by demonstrating an ability to nurture and motivate students to excellence; a willingness to help other legal writing educators improve their teaching skills or their legal writing programs; and an ability to create and integrate new ideas for teaching and motivating legal writing educators and students. The Blackwell Award is presented at the annual January meeting of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS).

The Teresa Godwin Phelps Award for Scholarship in Legal Communication

The Teresa Godwin Phelps Award for Scholarship in Legal Communication recognizes outstanding scholarship that strengthens the discipline of legal communication. One or more awards will be given each year for a scholarly article or essay; if warranted, additional awards may be presented for outstanding books within the discipline.

 

The Golden Pen Award

LWI created the Golden Pen Award to recognize individuals or organizations for significantly advancing the cause of professional legal writing. Anyone who has made an extraordinary contribution to improving legal writing may be nominated for the Golden Pen. The contribution may take any form, such as promoting the use of clear language in public documents; engaging in outstanding scholarship or journalism about legal writing or in exceptional writing for law practice; improving the quality of legal writing instruction; or advocating for better writing within the legal community. The award is usually given to someone who is not an active LWI member, but an active member may be considered in exceptional circumstances.
 

The Deborah Hecht Memorial Writing Award

The Deborah Hecht Memorial Writing Award honors the life of our colleague, Deborah Hecht. The award is given to the author of the best article published in The Second Draft during a two-year period. The award is presented during the LWI Biennial Conference.
 

The Courage Award

Terri LeClercq created the Courage Award to honor "courage writ large" concerning legal writing. Through the award, the Legal Writing Institute seeks to honor a member who has demonstrated courage by doing, despite fear, something that most people would not do. 
 

The Mary S. Lawrence Award

The Mary S. Lawrence Innovation Award recognizes an individual for innovative contribution to the legal writing discipline such as innovative scholarship, teaching, curriculum, or center/program design. The award can recognize an innovator at any stage of their career, reflecting Professor Lawrence’s long and pioneering work to develop the discipline.

The Emerging Scholar Award

This new award (created 2019) recognizes emerging scholars in our discipline to foster a new generation of scholars while recognizing the rich diversity of our community.  Unlike the Phelps Award, this award is limited to a professor’s first or second full-length, published article on legal writing doctrine or pedagogy.  

The Laurel Currie Oates Influential Teaching Award

This new award (created 2019) recognizes outstanding teachers who have influenced the teaching of legal writing beyond their individual classrooms.  With this award, we acknowledge our continued commitment to excellence in teaching and advances in legal writing pedagogy. This is not a lifetime achievement award.  

 

J. Christopher Rideout Presidential Service Award

The J. Christopher Rideout Presidential Service Award recognizes Legal Writing Institute members who have gone above and beyond in their service to LWI. The award was introduced in 2018 by Kristen Tiscione at the beginning of her LWI presidency. Originally known as the President’s Distinguished Service Award, it was renamed in 2026 to honor J. Christopher “Chris” Rideout.