The Legal Writing Institute (LWI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving legal communication by supporting the development of teaching and scholarly resources and establishing forums to discuss the study, teaching, and practice of professional legal writing. We believe that effective legal communication is critical to the wellbeing of society, the judicial system, and the legal profession.

With nearly 3,000 members, LWI is the second largest organization of law professors in the United States. But our members also include lawyers and judges, researchers, consultants, and undergraduate professors.

In addition to building the discipline of legal writing, LWI is also committed to improving the status of legal writing faculty across the country.  In 2015, LWI adopted the following statement:

     No justification exists for subordinating one group of law faculty to another based on the nature of  the course, the subject matter, or the teaching method.   All full-time law faculty should have the opportunity to achieve full citizenship at their institutions, including academic freedom, security of position, and governance rights. Those rights are necessary to ensure that law students and the legal profession benefit from the myriad perspectives and expertise that all faculty bring to the mission of legal education.

Both the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) have also adopted this statement.  To date, these organizations have collected over 570 individual signatories as well.  To sign this statement,  see our "Status Related Advocacy" page.

This website describes the rich array of conferences, publications, resources, events, and projects sponsored by LWI and carried out by its active volunteer members.  Anyone who is interested in legal writing or the teaching of legal writing may join LWI.