Judith D. Fischer
Assistant Professor of Law
- E-mail: jdfisc01@louisville.edu
- Phone: 502-852-6974
- Fax: 502-852-0862
- Office: 161
Professor Fischer received her B.A. and M.A. in English from Bradley University and her J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. She then became a partner in a large litigation firm in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. After teaching at the University of Cincinnati and Chapman University, she joined the faculty at the University of Louisville’s Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in 2000. She teaches legal writing and women and the law.
Professor Fischer serves on the editorial boards of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute and Kentucky's Bench and Bar Journal. She has presented programs on legal writing at national conferences and has taught continuing legal education courses in Kentucky, California, and Ohio, and Oregon. She has also lectured at universities in Australia, South Africa, Germany, Finland, and the United Kingdom.
Professor Fischer's scholarship includes articles on legal writing, advocacy, women and the law, and law school teaching. Her 2005 book Pleasing the Court: Writing Ethical and Effective Briefs examines professionalism in legal writing through numerous examples of judges' reactions to lawyers' errors. Her most recent project was a study of federal appelate judges' use of gender-neutral language. A draft report of the study is available at the SSRN link on this page.
Courses Taught
Basic Legal Skills
Women and the Law
Publications
Add Punch to your Writing, Bench & B. 80 (May 2008)
Texts, Lies, and Changed Positions: Review of The Little Book of Plagiarism (by Richard Posner), 16 Persps.: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 26 (2007)
Why George Orwell's Ideas about Writing Still Matter for Lawyers, 68 Mont. L. Rev. 129 (2007)
God and Caesar in the Twenty-First Century: What Recent Cases Say about Church-State Relations in England and the United States, 18 Fla. J. Intl. L. 485 (2006) (with Chloë J. Wallace)
Dismiss Those Sixth-Grade Hobgoblins, Bench & B. 69 (May 2007)
Implications of Recent Research on Student Evaluation of Teaching, 17 Mont. Prof. 11 (Fall 2006)
The Legal Writing Posters at the AALS Conference, AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research Newsletter 4 (Spring 2006)
Avoiding Plagiarism in Legal Documents, Bench & B. 68 (May 2006)
Minding the Gaps in Pornography Law, 10 Nexus: A Journal of Opinion 31 (2005)
Pleasing the Court: Writing Ethical and Effective Briefs (Carolina Academic Press 2005)
Streamline Your Writing, Bench & B. 38 (July 2005)
How Do I Cite . . . ?, Bench & B. 35 (Jan. 2005) (co-author)
The Role of Ethics in Legal Writing: The Forensic Embroiderer, The Minimalist Wizard, and Other Stories, 9 Scribes J. Leg. Writing 77 (2003-2004)
Public Policy and the Tyranny of the Bottom Line in the Termination of Older Workers, 53 S.C. L. Rev. 211 (2002)
Teaching the Law School Curriculum 224, 268, 380, 381 (Steven Friedland & Gerald F. Hess, eds., Carolina Academic Press 2004), contributor
Presentations
International
Framing Gender, lecture to Flinders University law faculty, Adelaide, Australia (2008)
Politics and the Ten Commandments in the U.S.: What Will the Supreme Court Do?, lecture to faculty at the University of Leeds, U.K. (2005)
Selected Issues in the U.S. Legal System, course taught at the University of Turku, Finland (2004)
The American Legal System, and Response to Terrorism, lectures at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (2003)
The American Legal System, Women in the American Legal System, and Tort Duty in the U.S., lectures at University of Natal, South Africa (2002)
U.S.
Framing Gender, Presentation to Indiana University School of Law faculty (Feb. 2008)
Student Evaluations: What Empirical Research Reveals, presentation at 2006 Legal Writing Institute Conference (with Melissa Shafer)
Empirical Research on Student Evaluations, poster presentation at AALS Conference (2006)
Getting Great Teaching Evaluations, panel at Association of Legal Writing Directors’ Conference (2005)
What Does It Mean to Teach Students to Think Like Lawyers?, Association of Legal Writing Directors’ Conference (2005) (discussion facilitator)
Student Ratings in Law Schools, presentation at Association of Legal Writing Directors’ Conference (2003)
Roundtable on Scholarship, panel at Association of Legal Writing Directors’ Conference (2003)
University of Texas, Symposium on Approaching the Millennium, Misappropriation of Human Gametic Material and the Tort of Conversion (Mar. 1999)
State and local
Professionalism in Brief Writing, Washington and Oregon Continuing Legal Education Forum, November 10, 2006 (continuing legal education presentation)
Writing Tips for Hearing Officers, for Kentucky Office of the Attorney General (2005) (continuing legal education presentation)
Top Ten Things Judges Want to See in Briefs, Louisville Bar Association (2004) (continuing legal education presentation)
Kentucky Court of Appeals Appellate Conference, Louisville (2003) (continuing legal education presentation)
Bias in the Profession, Orange County, California District Attorney’s Office (Dec. 1997) (continuing legal education presentation)
Domestic Relations Commissioners’ Seminar, Lexington (2002) (continuing legal education presentation)
Teaching the Law School Curriculum 224, 268, 380, 381 (Steven Friedland & Gerald F. Hess, eds., Carolina Academic Press 2004), contributor
University and Community Service
Legal Writing: Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, board of editors, 2006-present
Kentucky Bench & Bar Journal, editorial committee, 2007-present
University Faculty Senate Committee on Libraries, 2006-present