Engagement – Georgetown Legal English Blog

Updates from the Georgetown Legal English Faculty (December 2024)

Post by Stephen Horowitz, Lecturer of Legal English

Here’s what the Georgetown Legal English faculty have been up to since the end of summer 2024. (Click here to see previous Updates from the Legal English Faculty.)

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Heather Weger & Julie Lake

Prof. Julie Lake (left) and Prof. Heather Weger (right)

The end of the semester is upon us! This fall, we were thrilled to welcome a stellar group of students to the Two-Year LLM Program.

Fall Projects

Reinvigorated from presenting at the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) Biennial Conference in Indianapolis in July, we split our curricular energy in the reiterative cycle of refining our Fundamentals of Legal Writing course (a course that helps multilingual legal writers develop an authoritative voice for the genre of legal memo writing) and designing a new course, Academic Legal English I (a course that provides multilingual law students with opportunities to develop speaking and networking skills useful for navigating law school and the legal profession).

Beyond the classroom, we continued making progress with many other professional projects, including a monthly working group with Ukrainian linguists teaching in the law context, planning a writing retreat for colleagues at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in AY 2025-2026, and drafting a book proposal on writing instruction for multilingual law students.

Spring Projects

We look forward to the spring semester with the Two-Year LL.M. program! We will be offering Fundamentals of Legal Writing II (a course that focuses on the scholarly writing genre), and Academic Legal English II (a course that engages students in experiential learning to enhance their oral communication skills, grammar skills, and professional language skills).

We also look forward to presenting at the TESOL International Convention and Expo in March 2025 in Long Beach, CA. We will be presenting theories and practices that will appear in our upcoming book.

Winter Break

We each plan to spend the holiday season with friends and loved ones. Professor Lake will travel to the Boston area, and Professor Weger will stay in Virginia. We wish you a healthy and restful winter break!

Ben Cheng

Prof. Cheng taught both Legal English I and Professional Responsibility during the fall. He is looking forward to teaching Legal English II as well as a new Negotiations course for LLM students for which he consulted with Barrie Roberts, founder of Mediation as a Second Language and author of The “Getting to Yes” Guide for ESL Students and Professionals.

John Dundon

Professor Dundon taught two very different, but closely related, courses this semester. The first was a section of U.S. Legal, Research, Analysis & Writing in the Two-Year LL.M. Program, a course which introduces our multilingual law students to the three very different tasks of performing U.S. legal research, creating legal arguments based on case law, and presenting this research and analysis in a polished legal memorandum that meets the expectations of a U.S. legal audience.

Professor Dundon also taught Introduction to the U.S. Legal System, a large survey class that included all students from the Two-Year LL.M. Program, as well as foreign-trained students in Georgetown Law’s general LL.M. program who wish to qualify for the New York bar exam. This class was designed to answer the broad and somewhat esoteric question of “How does the U.S. legal system work?” Rather than focusing on any particular area of substantive law, this class touched on the structure of the U.S. government and the limits of federal power, the tools that courts use to interpret statutes and prior case law, and the ways in which federal and state courts often must interpret the law of other jurisdictions (i.e., federal courts interpreting state law, and vice versa), among other topics.

As different as these courses may appear at first glance, they were intimately connected. Understanding how U.S. courts do their job is a necessary precondition to understanding the relative weight of sources of U.S. law and how these sources are used to make legal arguments. And understanding how U.S. lawyers craft their legal arguments, in turn, helps students anticipate what to look for when reading all of the cases that they have been assigned for homework in their various classes.

When he wasn’t teaching (or being a dad) this semester, Professor Dundon also completed and defended his dissertation proposal in furtherance of his doctoral studies in Georgetown’s Linguistics Department. The working title of Professor Dundon’s dissertation is Intertextuality and Metadiscourse in U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments, and his study will investigate how sources of law are linguistically positioned as having formal authority in oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Among his dissertation committee members is Professor Marta Baffy of the University of Baltimore School of Law, a former faculty director in the Two-Year LL.M. Program at Georgetown Law.

Finally, Professor Dundon had a research article published this fall in the Journal of Pragmatics: “I think Gray is just against you there”: Intertextuality and personification in legal discourse. This study explores how parties in Supreme Court oral arguments (both attorneys and Justices) tend to personify the names of prior cases and animate them with human traits such as emotions and the power of speech. In the article, Professor Dundon posits that this personification is an information-management tool occurring in sequences of oral arguments that are particularly dense with references to case law. This is a strand of research that he hopes to revisit, in part, in his dissertation.

Stephen Horowitz

Georgetown Law

*Finished teaching Legal English I to the Two-Year LLM Program students, for what looks like it may be the final time. The course focused on a line of torts cases on the topic of negligence and helped students understand how to read and think about common law cases in the US legal system, and also how to organize an outline, think about hypotheticals, and write exam answers using an IRAC approach that connects discourse to writing moves, and writing moves to the language and grammar needed to execute those writing moves.

*Taught a section of US Legal Research & Writing for the LLM students in the Two-Year LLM Program. In addition to teaching the process of legal research, focused in particular on the discourse, writing moves, and language needed to execute the writing moves and discourse of legal memorandum writing.

Ukraine

*In November, began serving as a Visiting Professor of Legal English at the Kyiv-Mohyla Law School for the purpose of providing faculty training and curriculum development support. (Special thanks to Justice For All Ukraine’s Artem Shaipov for facilitating the relationship!)

*Initiated and helped organize a November 25, 2024 joint event on the law school campus titled, “Insider Perspectives on Atrocity Crimes Accountability in Ukraine,” hosted by Georgetown Law’s International Criminal Justice Initiative and by Truth Hounds, an independent Ukrainian organization focused in investigating war crime atrocities committed by Russia against Ukraine. The panel featured ICJI’s Christopher “Kip” Hale, who has been advising Ukraine’s Prosecutor General on the investigation and prosecution of war atrocities, and Volodymyr Hryshko, Legal Counsel for Truth Hounds, and Vladaslav Chyryk, Investigator for Truth Hounds, and was moderated by Professor Alan Blakley, Visiting Professor, Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Faculty of Law.

*Expanded weekly Legal English Conversation Zoom sessions from Ukrainian law faculty to Ukrainian law students. Recruited over 300 Ukrainian law students and over 100 US law students (and a few French law students) to participate. Approximately 40 of the US law students volunteered to host weekly Legal English Conversation Zoom sessions for the Ukrainian law students modeled on how I facilitate the sessions with Ukrainian law and legal English faculty. (Here’s a post on the Georgetown Legal English Blog with more information about this initiative, plus sign-up links for anyone else who would like to volunteer.)

*Helped law faculty from State Tax National University and Oles Gonchar Dnipro National University identify and connect with US law faculty for the purpose of providing lectures to the Ukrainian law schools on the topics of Rule of Law, Cybersecurity, Criminal Law, Search & Seizure Law, Election Law, Democracy, Legislation Process, System of Checks & Balances, Artificial Intelligence Regulations, Anti-Corruption Regulations and Political Corruption Regulations, among others.

Sri Lanka

*Over the winter break, visited Sri Lanka to lead Training of Trainer (TOT) workshops on legal English curriculum development for the University of Colombo and University of Jaffna in connection with USAID’s Efficient and Effective Justice (EEJ) Program in Sri Lanka. Similar to Ukraine, in Sri Lanka law schools are in the process of moving towards English-language-only curriculum.

Afghanistan

*In December, continued conducting assessments for former Afghan judges and lawyers in connection with the ABA Afghan Legal Professionals Scholarship & Mentoring Pilot Program. The assessment project is in collaboration with Prof. Daniel Edelson (Seton Hall/USLawEssentials.com) and Prof. Lindsey Kurtz (Penn State Law).

*Also, with Daniel Edelson and USLawEssentials, continued offering a free self-guided online Pre-LLM legal English program (i.e., Fundamentals of the US Legal System + Reading Cases + Legal Writing + Legal Listening) to help Afghan candidates prepare to start an LLM program at a US law school.

Japan

*In October/November, guest-lectured in three classes for the legal English course at Keio University Law School on the topics of Case Reading Strategies and the Language of Analogy.

Interestingly, the course came into existence at Keio thanks to a change in the date of the Japanese bar exam, which meant that students still have an additional semester of classes after they’ve completed the bar exam. As a result, there’s increased demand for Legal English among the students since they recognize the need for English and know that once they graduate and begin their legal training work, they will not have much time to study English. Special thanks to Profs. Masako Miyatake and Mindy Allen for the invite!

Assessment

*Thanks to a post on the Consortium on Graduate Communications (CGC) listserv, ended up piloting a new language assessment with a small cohort of Georgetown LLM students in collaboration with Sotiria Koui, founder of ELT Matters and creator of ALIGN Plus, “An online English language placement test for the academic needs of graduate students.”

Looking ahead to 2025….

*In the Spring 2025 semester, will be teaching Professional Responsibility for a section of LLM students, and Legal English II for the Two-Year LLM Program students. Legal English II will use as its primary materials a line of Criminal Procedure cases related to Miranda rights and help deepen their case reading and analysis skills.

*On January 15, 2025, will be the External Speaker for the European Legal English Teachers’ Association (EULETA) external speaker series event titled, “Legal English in US Law Schools: Meeting the needs of international LLM students.” [Click here for more information and to register for this event.]

*In June, 2025 will teach the Legal Writing course for the Southwestern Institute for International and Comparative Law’s annual Academy for international lawyers. This will be the 60th year of its Academy.

*Will start to develop new Online Legal English (OLE) courses to be made available to Georgetown Law students as well as to learners outside of Georgetown.

*Working on developing a Rule of Law legal English course, thanks to support and materials from University of Arkansas Law Professor Christopher Kelley.

New: US law student + Ukrainian law student Legal English conversation project

Posted by Stephen Horowitz, Lecturer of Legal English

Very happy to share that I’ve just launched a new initiative to provide Legal English support for over 300 Ukrainian law students. It’s an expansion of the model I’ve been using to host and facilitate Legal English conversation sessions for Ukrainian law and Legal English faculty.

The faculty sessions, which I’ve run for about two years now, involve me hosting a weekly Zoom session and sending a calendar invite to a list of Ukrainian faculty and a list of US/EU faculty who have indicated interest in participating. (I’ve been able to reach and connect with so many Ukrainian faculty members thanks to Artem Shaipov, Legal Advisor and Team Lead for Legal Education Reform for the USAID Justice for All (Ukraine) program.)

Each week I log in to Zoom, and then as faculty members join, I pair them off into breakout rooms for 45 minutes of conversation in English about whatever they want to discuss. Sometimes it’s a 1-to-1 ratio, and sometimes there are 2 or 3 Ukrainian faculty members talking with one US/EU faculty member.

The number of faculty members and faculty volunteers who have signed up to participate is much bigger than the number who actually show up for a given Zoom session. And the numbers seem to work out each time. Faculty members join when they’re able. And if they miss a session, or can only join for one total session during the semester, that’s fine. The model essentially plays the percentages and has worked well 99.9% of the time.

The new initiative, connecting Ukrainian law students and US law students, is the same model, but there will be many more people involved, and many more Zoom sessions happening each week.

So far over 300 Ukrainian law students have signed up, and close to 100 US law students have also signed up. Of the US law students, about half have indicated that they would be willing to be a host for Zoom sessions. And that means there will be up to 50 different student-led Zoom sessions going on each week, each on different days and times. Having this range of options will hopefully help ensure that all of the Ukrainian and US law students can find one time each week to join when they’re able.

This is definitely experimental, so I assume there will be some bumps along the way. But hopefully those bumps will help to identify some protocols and best practices that will make things run more smoothly in the future. (Also, thanks to one of the US law student volunteers, I learned that a similar model is already in use by an organization called Ladies Let’s Talk. Immigrant women in the US are paired with English speakers for the purpose of practicing English conversation.)

And in the bigger picture, as Ukraine’s legal system shifts more towards the West and the EU, and as Ukraine’s law schools begin teaching all of their courses in English, the Ukrainian law students will find themselves better prepared and able to adapt. And also the connections formed now will lead to deeper connections in the future between the legal communities of Ukraine, the US, and other parts of the world.

Get Involved

If you are a US (or English speaking) law student and would like to volunteer, you can sign up just using this Google Form for US/English speaking law students. At some point you will receive calendar invites from the US law students serving as hosts/facilitators.

If you are a Ukrainian law student and would like to participate, you can sign up using this Google Form for Ukrainian law students.

And you can click here for more info and blog posts about the work that I and others in the Legal English/Legal Education field have been doing to support Ukrainian law schools, their faculty, and their students.

Update Oct 19, 2024: Here’s some feedback from some of the Zoom sessions that have already happened:

Thank you so much for such opportunity! It was a pleasure to discuss law systems of the US and Ukraine with [NAME1], so I really appreciate it a lot!!
I loved meeting all the Ukrainian students and getting to know them!
[NAME2] was great at explaining everything, so it was fun to listen to her answers and answer her questions myself)))
[NAME3] is such a nice person. It was interesting to talk to him and to get know something new.
[NAME4] is awesome!
Thank you for great opportunity to talk, get to know each other and develop!)
that was a great meeting, I really enjoyed it (especially the part with “only in ohio” lol)
I love this lessons
Just thank you 🙂

Questions? Feel free to contact me at sh1643@georgetown.edu or via Twitter/X at @gtlegalenglish.

Video: “Some new-ish thoughts on post-pandemic Online Legal English (OLE)”

Post by Stephen Horowitz, Professor of Legal English

Following up on the recent post “Georgetown Legal English at the 2023 ILEAC Annual Conference,” here is a link to the video of the presentation by Daniel Edelson and me on the topic “Some new-ish thoughts on post-pandemic Online Legal English (OLE.)” In it, we shared some examples of OLE models and content from the Georgetown Online Legal English course as well as from the St. John’s Law OLE course and the USLawEssentials’ OLE courses.

Video Links

Below are three different links to the same video (so you have multiple options in case one doesn’t work for some reason.)

Presentation Summary

Activities for teaching cross-cultural competence via LLM-JD interaction

Post by Stephen Horowitz, Professor of Legal English

Recently on the Legal Writing Institute listserv, a request was made for examples of ways to help teach cross-cultural competency. And I shared with the requester the following two activities from when I worked at St. John’s Law which I think were very effective for both teaching cross-cultural competency and also for fostering interaction between JD and LLM students. I think they also helped shift perspectives away from a deficit mindset of LLM students and toward a view that recognizes and takes advantage of the asset that LLM students are to a US law school.

Activity #1: Legal Writing Role Play

This activity involved collaboration between an LLM legal writing section and a JD writing section. It was the result of brainstorming with the JD legal writing professor and coming up with a plan based on the legal writing assignment the JD students would already be doing. The role play would explain to both the JD and LLM students that they were associates in a global law firm but in offices in different countries. And they had no previous relationship or interaction.

Johnny Depp and bar prep on the USLawEssentials Law & Language podcast

Post by Prof. Stephen Horowitz, Legal English Lecturer

Just sharing a few potentially interesting, engaging and short(!) legal English podcast episodes from the USLawEssentials Law & Language podcast, for which I’m a co-host.

Johnny Depp

If you’ve been paying attention to the news at all over the past month, then you’ve probably heard about the celebrity defamation trial between Johnny Depp and his former wife Amber Heard.

The USLawEssentials Law & Language podcast has not been covering every minute of the trial. But it does have two episodes to help foreign-educated attorneys and law students better understand the legal English concepts of “hearsay” and “forum shopping.”

And bar prep

The USLawEssentials Law & Language podcast also recently launched the first episode on a continuing series of short episodes focused on exam-tested topics. And the first episode is on sources of contract law.

So if you want to get a head start on the legal English of bar exam preparation, this episode and future episodes will be helpful and relatively painless ways to improve your legal English vocabulary and fluency that will benefit you down the road.

The USLawEssentials Law & Language Podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Sticher, Himalaya, Overcast, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Finnish comedian Ismo on nuances of the English language

Post by Prof. Stephen Horowitz, Legal English Lecturer

I recently learned of the Finnish comedian Ismo who I now believe to be one of the great commenters on the English language, and in ways that I imagine are both helpful and entertaining for non-native English speakers.

In this clip below he offers insights on the language of American greetings, offers of help, and the wide range of potential meanings for the word “ass.” I have not yet had a chance to share this with my students, but I will at some point.

Ismo also has a terrific bit on what he considers to be the hardest word in the English language: “I didn’t know shit“

My other favorite comedy and language bit is by Jerry Seinfeld on the topic of prepositions. But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be available on the internet.

In it, he observes that we ride “in” a car but “on” a train. And if you go to Manhattan you’re “in” Manhattan. But if you to to Long Island, you’re “on the Island.”

And what do you do with Uber? Well, you “take” an Uber.

It’s also a great clip to share with students because, unlike a lot of other American stand-up comedy, it’s easily understandable for non-native English speakers.

If any readers ever find a link for this bit, I would greatly appreciate if it could be shared with me.

National security, homosexuality and legal English?

Post by Prof. Stephen Horowitz, Legal English Lecturer

On the New York Time Book Review Podcast this week (after a discussion of The Great Stewardess Rebellion) they discussed a book that caught my attention: Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington by James Kirchick.

[Note: Here’s an excerpt from the book recently published in The Atlantic: “Being Gay Was the Gravest Sin in Washington: In the 1960s, the capital was an alluring but dangerous place for people with a secret.”]

The scope of the book turned out to be a little narrower, though no less intriguing, than the title initially indicated. The “Washington” referred to is not about life in general in the Nation’s Capital, but more specifically focuses on the national security policy-making world centered in Washington.

Either way, this seemed like a terrific pre-LLM read to mention to our incoming LLM students–particularly any incoming international students in Georgetown Law’s highly regarded National Security Law LLM program. A wonderful way to build cultural and background knowledge on the history (and vocabulary) of national security politics and policy in Washington while also accounting for and shedding light on an untold and underrepresented historical voice and perspective.

Here’s the NY Times Book Review podcast episode. The discussion of Secret City starts about halfway through the episode:

And here’s a summary of Secret City from Amazon:

LLMs and JD students: Creating opportunities for interaction

Post by Prof. Stephen Horowitz, Legal English Lecturer

Question: Aside from class integration and language partners, have you done any programs at your respective schools that have been particularly effective at bringing these groups together?

I recently saw the above question (on a listserv for LLM program administrators) about ways to foster connections between LLM students and JD students, as this type of integration is something greatly appreciated by LLM students and can make a program more appealing and provide a richer and fuller experience for LLM students.

For JD students, on the other hand, this is not necessarily something many of them are seeking as they often have their own priorities and pressure-filled law school lives. So how do you flush out the JD students who might be interested in connecting with LLM students? Or create opportunities for connection and interaction that are genuinely engaging and don’t feel forced?

Here are some previous ideas and experiences I shared for building LLM-JD connections and interaction that are a little outside the usual ideas and which I thought may be helpful or inspire new ideas:

Book recommendations on language, law, race, and politics for LLMs coming to the Washington, DC area

Post by Prof. Stephen Horowitz, Legal English Lecturer

Are you an LLM student who will be studying (or has studied) at Georgetown Law, George Washington Law, American University Washington College of Law, University of Maryland Law, George Mason Scalia Law, University of Virginia Law or any other law school in the greater Washington, DC metro area?

Here are three books that may be interesting and helpful reads for better gaining background knowledge on language, legal, racial and political topics in the DC area. Even if you never read these books, just reading a little bit about them will go a long way towards giving you useful cultural perspectives, not to mention relevant conversation topics for engaging with classmates, professors, and others.

1. The Black Side of the River: Race, Language, and Belonging in Washington, DC

by Jessica A. Grieser

“In The Black Side of the River, sociolinguist Jessi Grieser draws on ten years of interviews with dozens of residents of Anacostia, a historically Black neighborhood in Washington, DC, to explore these ideas through the lens of language use. Grieser finds that residents use certain speech features to create connections among racial, place, and class identities; reject negative characterizations of place from those outside the community; and negotiate ideas of belonging. In a neighborhood undergoing substantial class gentrification while remaining decisively Black, Grieser finds that Anacostians use language to assert a positive, hopeful place identity that is inextricably intertwined with their racial one.”

And here’s a book review by HillRag which provides additional insight on the book.

Politics & Prose Presents Rosa Brooks on "TANGLED UP IN ...

2. Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City

by Rosa Brooks (Georgetown Law professor and former Dean of the Office of Graduate Studies, i.e., for a couple of years she was in charge of LLM programs at Georgetown Law)

Why Professor Rosa Brooks Added Police Officer to Her ... — Georgetown Law Professor Rosa Brooks

From Goodreads:

Journalist and law professor Rosa Brooks goes beyond the blue wall of silence in this radical inside examination of American policing
In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law’s troubled relationship with violence, Brooks wanted the kind of insider experience that would help her understand how police officers make sense of their world–and whether that world can be changed. In 2015, against the advice of everyone she knew, she applied to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department.

Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D ...

3. Dream City: Race, Power and the ~~Decline~~ Revival(?) of Washington, DC (20th Anniversary Edition)

By Harry S. Jaffe and Tom Sherwood

The title is potentially misleading. The book was published in 1994 and much has changed since then as DC (and many other cities in the US) are flourishing economically. So make sure to read the 20th Anniversary Edition with all of its updates.

But it provides great insight into the modern history of a major city (Washington, CD) without a state. The US Congress is actually in charge of DC and didn’t even allow it a mayor until 1978. And that’s when things get really crazy.

Marion Barry, Former Washington DC Mayor, Dies At 78 ... — Marion Barry next to a poster for the movie made about him.

It’s also the political history of Mayor Marion Barry, a true character in the modern history of Washington, DC. You need to get to know Barry to truly understand Washington, DC. Also, mentioning Mayor Barry is a great way to get any Washingtonian talking with you if you’re ever trying to make conversation. Everyone has an opinion, a story, a reaction.

The book is also offers great insights and perspectives on corruption. In fact, a former LLM student of mine from Italy who had written about corruption and organized crime in Italy greatly enjoyed and appreciated the book after I suggested it to him.

Teacher control vs student control in legal English

Stephen Horowitz is the Director of Online Legal English Programs at Georgetown Law.

Giving students more control and more voice makes teaching so much more effective. Yet figuring out how to do it is a process that takes time and effort and does not necessarily come naturally. (At least for me anyway.)

I’m thinking about this topic because of an excellent post on the EAP Essentials blog by Prof. Olwyn Alexander titled “They have to talk and you have to listen: The importance of collaborative conversations in online classrooms.”

The post explains that “Without student talk, the teacher has no immediate way of knowing whether the students understand the materials and tasks and therefore no opportunity to adapt to the in-the-moment needs of the students.”

I think as legal English teachers, most of us intrinsically understand that. We want our students to talk. We want to know what’s going on in their heads. But we’re not always sure how to make that happen. And when it doesn’t happen, it’s easy to shift responsibility to the students, particularly students from certain countries or cultures that teachers perceive as not as talkative in class.

Consequently, I think it’s helpful to be aware of the ways that we, as teachers, get in the way of ourselves and our students. And I think this may be particularly heightened in a legal environment where lawyers and law professors are expected to be sources of knowledge and much of one’s identity as a lawyer or law professor is connected with the ability to share knowledge that others seek or need. In my own experience, this is very true in law schools where the professors–even when they use Socratic method–still often maintain full control of the dialogue and shift frequently from questioner to explainer and knowledge-distributor.