Hofstra Law Faculty

Richard K. Neumann, Jr.

Alexander M. Bickel Distinguished Professor of Law

Degrees

LLM, 1978, Temple Univ Schl of Law; JD, 1975, American Univ DC; PGD, 1971, Stockholm University; BA, 1969, Pomona Coll


Bio

At Hofstra, Professor Neumann has taught Contracts; Drafting & Negotiating Contracts & Statutes; International Business Transactions; Transactional Lawyering; Legal Writing; Civil Procedure; Legal Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation; Pretrial Litigation; Federal Courts; Trial Techniques; and clinical courses.

Professor Neumann is the author or coauthor of five textbooks: Legal Drafting by Design (with J. Lyn Entrikin); Essential Lawyering Skills (with Stefan Krieger and Renée Hutchins); Transactional Lawyering Skills; Legal Writing (with Sheila Simon and Suzianne Painter-Thorne); and Legal Reasoning and Legal Writing (with Ellie Margolis & Kathryn Stanchi). His articles have appeared in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, the Journal of Legal Education, the Clinical Law Review, the Fordham Law Review, and the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, among others.

He is an editorial advisor to Aspen, one of the largest publishers of law school textbooks. He has served on several committees of the American Bar Association's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar as well as a number of ABA site inspection teams. He has been chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research; a member of the board of directors of the Legal Writing Institute, and a member of the board of directors and the executive committee of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. He is a frequent speaker at legal education conferences.


Curriculum Vitae


Publications

Books

Legal Drafting by Design: A Unified Approach (with J. Lyn Entrikin) (2018 Aspen)

Legal Writing (with Sheila Simon & Suzianne Painter-Thorne) (5th ed. 2023; 1st ed. 2008; Aspen)

Essential Lawyering Skills: Interviewing, Counseling, Negotiation, and Persuasive Fact Analysis (with Stefan Krieger & Renée Hutchins) (6th ed. 2020; 1st ed. 1999; Aspen)

Legal Reasoning and Legal Writing (with Ellie Margolis & Kathryn Stanchi) (9th ed. 2021; 1st ed. 1990; Aspen)

Transactional Lawyering Skills: Client Interviewing, Counseling, and Negotiation (2013 Aspen)

Selected Law Review Articles

Violations During the Pandemic of Law School Faculties’ Authority to Decide Methods of Instruction, 70 J. Leg. Educ. 413 (2021)

Why Congress Drafts Gibberish, 16 LC&R: JALWD 111 (2019)

Academic Freedom, Job Security, and Costs, 66 J. Legal Educ. 595 (2017)

Legislation’s Culture, 119 W. Va. L. Rev. 397 (2016)

Osler, Langdell, and the Atelier: Three Tales of Creation in Professional Education, 10 LC&R: JALWD 151 (2013)

What We Don’t Know About Deal Negotiation by Lawyers, 12 Tenn. J. of Bus. L. 153 (2011)

The Revival of Impeachment as a Partisan Political Weapon, 34 Hastings Const. L.Q. 161 (2007) (lead article; 165 pages)

Women in Legal Education: A StatisticalUpdate, 73 UMKC L. Rev. 419 (2004)

Conflicts of Interest in Bush v. Gore: Did Some Justices Vote Illegally?, 16 Geo. J. Leg. Ethics 375 (2003) (lead article)

Empirical Inquiry after The Lawyering Process, 10 Clinical L. Rev. 349 (2003) (with Stefan Krieger)

Women in Legal Education: What the Statistics Show, 50 J. Leg. Educ. 313 (2000) (lead article)

Donald Schön, the Reflective Practitioner, and the Comparative Failures of Legal Education, 6 Clinical L. Rev. 401 (2000)

From an Insurrection, 3 Yale J. Law & Humanities 157 (1991) (lead article)

On Strategy, 59 Fordham L. Rev. 299 (1990) (lead article)

A Preliminary Inquiry into the Art of Critique, 40 Hastings L.J. 725 (1989) (lead article)

Professional Activities

Aspen Publishers, Editorial Advisor (since 2001)

American Bar Association: Security of Position Committee, 2007-2008; Standards Review Committee, 2003-2006 (vice-chair 2005-2006); Communications Skills Committee, 1993-2002 (chair 2000-2002; vice-chair, 1998-2000); Legal Writing Committee, 1990-1993

American Bar Association: Site Evaluation Teams (thirteen since 1994).

Law School Admission Council: Scored Writing Project Advisory Committee, 2001-2002.

Association of Legal Writing Directors: Board of Directors, 1996-2002, and Executive Committee, 1997-98 and 1999-2002.

Legal Writing Institute: Board of Directors, 1990-1994.

Clinical Legal Education Association: chair, By-Laws Committee, 1992-1993.

Association of American Law Schools: Chair, Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning & Research, 1992.

Consultant on legal writing programs: City University of Hong Kong, Law Faculty, 2002; American University, Washington College of Law, 1999; Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School, 1998; University of Colorado School of Law, 1998.

Palacky University Faculty of Law (Czech Republic): Scholar-in-Residence, 1992; Project Director, National Endowment for Democracy Grant to Hofstra University. and Palacky University, 1992-1993. (This grant funded the first non-Communist law school teaching materials published in the Czech Republic in over 45 years.) Project Director, USIA University Affiliations Grant to Hofstra and Palacky, 1991-1995.

Awards

Burton Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education (2009)

AALS Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research Section Award (2009)

Association of Legal Writing Directors, Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award (2003).

Selected Speeches and Presentations

Ninth Applied Legal Storytelling Conference, City University, London, July 2023, speaker: Drafting Statutes as Stories

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2023, speaker: The Deterioration of Supreme Court Oral Argument — What 67 Years of Audio-Recordings plus Earlier Transcripts Show

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2022. Speaker: Oral Argument and Opinion-Writing in the Supreme Courts of the United States and the United Kingdom; panel speaker: Teaching Drafting via Zoom

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2019, panel speaker: Competing Definitions of Gibberish and Their Relation to Philosophy's Consensus Definition of Bullshit as a Precise Concept; panel speaker: Dancing In the Dark: Advocating for Legal Writing Faculty with Law School & University Administrations

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2018, panel speaker: In a Drafting Course, Teaching Rule Wisdom and Designing Law

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2017, panel speaker: Why Are Lawyers the Least Educated of All the Professions?

Emory Law School Transactional Law Conference, June 2016, panel speaker: Teaching Contract Drafting Simultaneously with Statute Drafting — How Each Enriches the Other

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2016, speaker: How Writers and Drafters Think Differently

Conference of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, June 2015, panel speaker: Fifty Shades of Pink: Is Gender Discrimination in Legal Education Obsolete, or Is It Just a Lighter Shade of Pink?

Global Legal Skills Conference 9, Verona, Italy, May 2014, panel speaker: Comparative Legislation, Statutory Drafting, and Statutory Interpretation

Western Regional Legal Writing Conference, August 2013, keynote address: Students and the Cost of Faculty Scholarship

Conference of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, June 2013, panel speaker: Bullying in Academia: Life on the Power Grid

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2012, panel speaker: Emerging Theories of Being, Nothingness and the Destruction of Knowledge: The Linguistic Contexts and Neuroscientific Dialectics of Relational Hierarchies

Boston College Law School Symposium, The Way to Carnegie, October 2011, panel speaker: Distorted Resource Allocations in Legal Education

LSAC Learning Disabilities Workshop, October 2011, panel speaker: Attention Deficit Disorder — ADD aka ADHD

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, July 2011, plenary panel speaker: Draft ABA Standards 302 through 305 (Outcomes Assessment) with Some Asides on Standard 405 and Political Rhetoric.

AALS Clinic Directors Workshop, June 2011, plenary panel speaker: Some Policy Issues Regarding ABA Standard 405.

Institute for Law Teaching & Learning Conference on Teaching Law Practice Across the Curriculum, June 2011, panel speaker: Law Teaching in Three Dimensions: Integrating Doctrine, Procedure, and Skills through the Lens of Rule-Drafting.

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2011, panel speaker: Emerging Theories of Interstitial Hermeneutics and Normative Globalization: The Phenomenological Heuristics of Neocontemporary Rhetoric.

Capital Area Legal Writing Conference, February 2011, panel speaker: Font Wars.

Annual Meeting, Association of American Law Schools, January 2011, panel speaker: Academic Freedom and Security of Position.

Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, June 2010, panel moderator and speaker: Rethinking the Traditional Legal Memo as a Teaching Tool; plenary panel speaker: ABA Accreditation Standards Review.

Institute for Law Teaching & Learning Conference on Teaching Law Practice Across the Curriculum, June 2010, panel speaker: Teaching the Mystique of Rule-Drafting and the Underlying Structure of Legal Analysis.

Emory Law School Conference on Transactional Education, June 2010, panel speaker: What We Don't Know About Deal Negotiation by Lawyers.

Global Legal Skills V Conference, Monterrey, Mexico, Feb. 2010, panel speaker: Comparative Legislation and Statutory Drafting Skills: Sweden.

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, July 2009, panel speaker and moderator: How Can Directors Protect Academic Freedom?

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2009, panel speaker: Statute and Contract Drafting in the U.S. and Overseas.

Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, July 2008. Speaker on two panels: Developing a Methodology for Comparing Discourse Communities and Legal Writing Faculty and Academic Freedom.

Emory Law School Conference on Teaching Drafting and Transactional Skills, May 2008. Panel speaker: What Happens When Drafting Teachers Take Over the Contracts Course.

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2008. Plenary panel speaker: Legal Writing Teachers and Academic Freedom.

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, June 2007. Panel speaker: ABA Accreditation Standards and Legal Writing.

ABA Accreditation Policy Task Force hearing, Feb. 2007. Testimony: Architecture and Medical School Accreditation Compared to Law School Accreditation.

Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, March 2006. Keynote speaker: Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyslexia, and Legal Writing.

Law School Admission Council Academic Assistance Training Workshop, June 2005. Panel speaker: Students with ADD/ADHD, Learning Disabilities, or Both.

Annual Meeting, Association of American Law Schools, January 2004. Panel speaker: Occupational Segregation by Sex in the Legal Academy.

Annual Meeting, Association of American Law Schools, January 2003. Panel speaker: Reflective Practice and Other Strategies for Developing True Expertise in ADR. Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, June 2002, Panel speaker: Gender Discrimination in Legal Writing: The Empirical Evidence.

City University of Hong Kong, Law Faculty, May 2002, presentation: Creating a Post-Graduate Legal Writing Program Training Students for Practice in Hong Kong.

American University, Washington College of Law, Faculty Speakers' Series, March 2002. Speaker: Unexamined Assumptions about Law School Exams.

Annual Meeting, Association of American Law Schools, January 2002. Panel speaker and moderator: Just What Do the Doctors Prescribe . . . and the Architects Do? (comparing medical and architectural education with legal education).

Annual Meeting, American Bar Association, August 2001. Panel speaker and moderator: How Can Law Schools Better Teach the Skills Needed by Transactional Lawyers and Business Litigators?

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, July 2001. Plenary panel speaker: Models from Other Disciplines: What Can We Learn from Them? (panel on medical and architectural education, published in Erasing Lines: Integrating the Law School Curriculum (2001).

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, July 1999. Two panels: risk taking in program design (presenter and moderator) and the ALWD Citation Manual (presenter, plenary)

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, June 1998. Panel speaker and moderator: Preparing for an ABA Site Inspection.

Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, June 1998. Speaker on three panels: Scholarship and Publishing; Advice to New Legal Writing Teachers; and Collaboration among Legal Writing Professionals and Organizations.

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, July 1997. Plenary panel speaker: economics of legal education, ABA accreditation, and related topics.

Atlantic Region Legal Research and Writing Conference, May 1997. Panel speaker: Scholarship and Publishing.

Annual Meeting, Association of Legal Writing Directors, July 1996. Panel speaker and moderator: Recodification of ABA Accreditation Standards.

Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, July 1996. Speaker on two panels: Professional Challenges to New Legal Writing Teachers and Recodification of ABA Accreditation Standards.

Legal Research and Writing Directors' Conference, July 1995. Panel speaker: Accreditation Standards and Site Evaluations.

Workshop on Clinical Legal Education, Association of American Law Schools, May 1991. Panel speaker: The Reflective Practitioner.

Annual Meeting, American Bar Association, August 1990. Panel speaker: Techniques to Revise Lawyers' Writing.

Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, August 1990. Panel speaker: Teaching Analysis through Writing.

Annual Meeting, Association of American Law Schools, January 1990, Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning & Research. Panel speaker: The Creative Process.

UCLA-Warwick International Clinical Scholarship Conference, September 1989. Presented paper: Teaching the Process of Developing Strategy.

Columbia Law School Clinical Theory Workshop, 1988. Paper presentation: The Art of Critique.