Chris Guthrie, dean of Vanderbilt University Law School, has announced the appointment of Tami Lefko as Director of Legal Writing. She joins Vanderbilt’s law faculty from the University of Southern California, where she was Associate Director of LL.M. Legal Writing and Advocacy and an adjunct assistant professor of legal writing and advocacy.
As Vanderbilt’s Director of Legal Writing, Professor Lefko will head a faculty of eight experienced legal writing teachers.
Professor Lefko earned her undergraduate degree in economics and Japanese language and culture from the University of Michigan (magna cum laude), and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was an executive editor of the Harvard Law Review. She began her legal career with a two-year clerkship for the Honorable Haldane Robert Mayer on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., and also clerked for the Honorable Laughlin E. Waters on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. She also worked as a research attorney for the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Professor Lefko was an associate with Irell & Manella in Los Angeles before launching her own private research and consulting practice in 2003. As a consultant, she has written more than 100 custom research memoranda for LRN, a Los Angeles-based legal research company where she had previously served as manager of legal research.
“Our Legal Research & Writing Program is an extremely important part of the first-year curriculum, and I’m delighted that Tami is joining us to lead it,” Dean Guthrie said. “I’m confident that Tami and our team of outstanding and dedicated instructors will take an already strong program and make it even stronger.”
“I am really excited about the opportunity to direct Vanderbilt’s Legal Writing program and to work with Dean Guthrie and this fantastic group of students, librarians, faculty and staff,” Professor Lefko said. “I look forward to helping the J.D. and LL.M. students to master these important skills.”
Founded in 1875, Vanderbilt Law School trains excellent lawyers for careers throughout the nation and around the world. Located on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt combines the advantages of a top-tier faculty, a stimulating university community; a small, carefully selected student body, and one of the nation’s most modern, state-of-the-art facilities.