At UNT Dallas College of Law nearly all full-time faculty members teach students legal writing—after all, writing assignments are incorporated into the College of Law curriculum in nearly all doctrinal and skills-based courses. A select number of College of Law faculty, however, in addition to the Director of Legal Writing and Assistant Director of Legal Writing, regularly teach advanced writing courses and/or have been trained to serve as major writing advisors for students who complete their major writing through an independent study.
Full-Time Legal Writing Professors
- Professor Melissa Shultz, Director of the Center for Writing Excellence
- Professor Christine Tamer, Assistant Director of Legal Writing
- Professor Diana Howard, Legal Writing Specialist
Full-Time Professors: Advanced Writing Courses and/or Advisors for Independent Study Writing Courses
- Professor Jonathan Bridges
- Professor Loren Jacobson
- Professor Eric Porterfield
- Professor Ellen S. Pryor
Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct faculty are critical to the writing program at UNT Dallas College of Law. Although full-time faculty oversee the Center for Writing Excellence and teach the first-year writing curriculum, it is adjunct faculty who lead the small-section workshop component of the first-year legal writing courses. In addition, after working in our first-year writing program, writing adjuncts often return to the College of Law writing program either to teach in the first-year program again or to teach and to design an advanced writing practicum.
Teaching Fellows
Teaching Fellows are upper-level College of Law students, who did well in first-year legal writing and have applied to be a part of the College of Law’s elite Teaching Fellows Program. As Teaching Fellows, students take an advanced legal writing class in the fall semester to fine-tune their writing skills in a small classroom setting and to prepare them to assist first-year students as Teaching Fellows in the legal writing classroom in the spring semester. During the spring semester, Teaching Fellows hold office hours during which they are available to help first-year students with their legal writing assignments. At least one Teaching Fellow is assigned to each spring-semester first-year section of legal writing assists with running that section’s legal writing workshop. Teaching Fellows — while not a replacement for a student’s full-time and adjunct legal writing professors — are an excellent resource to assist students in becoming proficient legal writers.
Office Hours for Teaching Fellows
Teaching Fellows hold office hours in Room 201C, adjacent to Professor Shultz’s office.