Brad Clary

Brad is a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis, who has served the legal writing community for thirty-seven years at his home institutions, as the President of ALWD, as a principal contributor to the second edition of the Sourcebook on Legal Writing Programs (ABA, 2d ed. 2006), as ALWD Liaison to the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and much more.

This distinguished award is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to improve the field of Legal Writing by demonstrating (1) an ability to nurture and motivate students to excellence; (2) a willingness to help other legal writing educators improve their teaching skills or their legal writing programs; and, (3) an ability to create and integrate new ideas for teaching and motivating legal writing educators and students.

As stated in his many nomination letters, Brad exemplifies these qualities in several important ways.  Here are just a few excerpts from several nominators:     

“Brad Clary’s contributions to the legal writing academy over the past thirty-seven years deserve to be recognized . . . .  Brad’s innovation has transformed the Minnesota program into the best it can possibly be. . . . He has increased morale from the student and teacher perspective by always offering sound counsel to any student or instructor who stops by his office (his door is always open) . . . . He has created a legal writing program that produces award-winning students, dedicated lawyers, and talented attorney instructors.” 

 

“I am pleased to nominate Brad Clary from the University of Minnesota School of Law for the Blackwell Award. Brad is the sort of person who quietly does things because they need to get done. He would never think he did anything extraordinary, but he has accomplished great things for our discipline. He embodies the values the Blackwell Award represents.”

 

“I fell in love with teaching, in part because every discussion Brad and I had about the class I taught was focused on outcomes for the students. We talked then about how, even in the early 2000s, legal writing and its teaching were under-theorized and very incompletely researched. He encouraged me to do something about it.”

 

“Additional evidence of Brad’s dedication to the legal writing field are two ground breaking conferences, both held at University of Minnesota Law School, the Erasing Lines Conference and the Acknowledging Lines Conference. These conferences, which may be best described as bookends, have helped frame the issues confronting legal writing faculty.”

The Blackwell Award Reception will be held at the AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. on Friday evening, January 3, 2020. 

Brad’s colleagues at Minnesota Law had the pleasure of surprising Brad with this award and were kind enough to share pictures of the surprise.