First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program

The First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program (LRW) is a series of sequenced, interrelated exercises introducing students to the way lawyers analyze and frame legal positions in both litigative and transactional settings, conduct legal research, and present their work in writing and in oral argument. Instruction in legal research and writing is led by thirteen Climenko Fellows, the director of the program, and research librarians, as well as upper-class teaching assistants.

• Course Description
• Introduction to LRW
• Statement of Rules and Understandings

Climenko Fellowships

First-year law students are instructed in the Program by thirteen Climenko Fellows, promising legal scholars with high academic achievements and a strong interest in pursuing a career in law teaching.

Information for Prospective Climenko Fellows

2009-2011 Climenko Fellows

Michael Burstein
John Brooks
Michael Coenen
Jaime Dodge
Zachary Gubler
Jill Goldenziel
Rebecca Haw

2007-2009 Climenko Fellows 

John Coyle
Lilian Faulhaber
Rene Reyes
Brishen Rogers
Brian Sheppard
C. Cora True-Frost

2007-2009 Climenko Fellows

Michele D. Beardslee contact: mbeardslee@law.miami.edu
Tara Grove, contact: tgrove@law.fsu.edu
David Landau
Ken Levy, contact: klevy@lsu.edu
Matthew Lindsay
Amanda Pustilnik, contact: apustilnik@umaryland.edu

Director & Staff

Susannah Barton Tobin
Director, First-Year Legal Research and Writing

 E-mail: stobin

Susannah Barton Tobin is the Director of the First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program.  She received her B.A. in classics, magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 2000, where she was the recipient of the Newbold Rhinelander Landon Memorial Prize.  She received an M.Phil in classics from the University of Cambridge in 2001, and a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 2004.  While in law school, she was a senior editor of the Harvard Civil-Rights Civil Liberties Law Review and summered at the ACLU of Massachusetts and Ropes & Gray.  She then clerked on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Judge Mark L. Wolf and on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for Judge Levin H. Campbell.  Over the last several years, she has advised hundreds of Harvard undergraduates as a resident tutor in Leverett House, for which work the College recognized her with the Marquand Award for Exceptional Advising and Counseling.  She serves as a trustee of The Harvard Crimson and The Winsor School.

Karen Bell Thomas

Staff Assistant

 E-mail: kthomas 

Karen has a B.S. in Communications with a concentration in Educational Media from Boston University and an A.S. in Radio/TV Communications from Endicott College. After graduating she worked at the Harvard Business School News Bureau for seven years producing brochures and fielding media inquiries.  Karen left HBS to manage print production for medical and educational journals; and developed public relations programs and designed marketing materials for construction and engineering firms.  She is pleased to be back at Harvard and lives in Arlington with her husband and son.

Contact:

LRW@law.harvard.edu