1. To graduate, all students must successfully fulfill a faculty-supervised writing requirement.
2. Faculty-supervised writing shall be defined as a paper of at least 20 pages, evidencing significant legal or empirical research and thoughtful writing. It shall be written exclusively by the student seeking credit.
3. By definition, a faculty-supervised writing project requires at least two drafts. The first draft is submitted to the faculty advisor, who returns it with a detailed critique. The final draft must consider and remedy the critiques the faculty advisor offers.
4. A full-time faculty member must ordinarily grade the final draft. Where the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs finds it appropriate, adjunct faculty members can supervise and grade papers submitted for the writing requirement in conjunction with a seminar.
5. All papers submitted in satisfaction with the faculty-supervised writing requirement must be of substantial length, requiring the student to explore, based on significant research in legal sources, the interrelationships of issues presented in a complex context. So defined, formats satisfying the writing requirement could include, though need not be limited to, the following:
- A seminar paper, like a law review article
- A trial or appellate brief
- An internal memorandum written to a client, which analyzes an issue or issues presented for decision or action
- A set of legal documents or a suggested plan of action accompanied by a memorandum of law explaining and justifying the choices made in the documents or plan
- A legal writing independent study for 1 or 2 credits; or
- An additional comment was written by a third-year Senior Staff member of the Law Review, the Journal of Law and Commerce, or the Pittsburgh Journal of Technology Law Policy who has already written a comment, note, or similar writing to satisfy the requirement for membership in and academic credit for the publication, if a faculty member has supervised the additional work and certifies that the paper meets the standards for satisfying the requirement. (Double credits, e.g., credit for both Law Review and an independent study, may not be earned, and the student may receive no editorial assistance from other Law Review, Journal, or TLP members until after the faculty member’s certification if this option is selected.)
6. A paper will only satisfy the writing requirement if the final draft of the paper receives a grade of at least B-. (See Grading #5 below for the instructor’s options in grading that paper.)
7. Students can satisfy the writing requirement in either their second or third year.
8. Students must register for the specific Legal Writing Independent Study course for 1 or 2 credits to receive a letter grade and be counted toward the upper-level writing requirement.