Neither Dead nor Dangerous: Postmodernism and the Teaching of Legal Writing

Abstract

This article explores postmodernism and its relation to teaching of legal writing. Postmodernism is an undeniably important theory in literary criticism, composition and rhetoric and has provoked much debate in areas of legal scholarship, but it has seldom been addressed directly by legal writing scholars. The teaching of legal writing has been greatly affected by postmodernism and can be characterized as a class in what is otherwise a modernist academy. Legal writing teachers generally teach in a modernist paradigm which seeks to normalize law and create unitary meaning from morass of texts and ideas which is considered the law. They have, however, simultaneously, a rather benignant postmodernist bent when it comes to teaching writing and have to engage a number of postmodern paradoxes as part of their profession. It is postmodern components of their work that provide strength to profession and help prepare law students for both modern and world. This article directly contradicts legal scholars who claim postmodernism is dead, dangerous, or irrelevant to law and legal academy.The article begins by defining postmodernism and its contribution to legal academy in general. The article continues by examining how postmodernism has affected teaching of legal writing specifically. Postmodernism underlies theories of process and post-process writing pedagogy, deconstruction, and story-telling, which can all be found in many legal writing classrooms. In addition, legal writing class embodies certain postmodern attributes or characteristics not found in many of other, more modernist, parts of legal academy. The article concludes by arguing that postmodern components of legal writing classes are a source of their strength, growth and relevance in and outside of law schools. Postmodernism, in this context, is neither dead nor dangerous but rather vital and relevant to legal education.The topic of this article was competitively selected to be awarded a grant from Association of Legal Writing Directors and parts of article were presented at Third Annual Rocky Mountain Region and 2005 Central States Legal Writing Conferences.