U.S. News & World Report’s first ranking of legal writing programs lists the University of Dayton School of Law among its top 20 in the nation.

Rankings are compiled from surveys distributed to legal research and writing professors nationwide. Legal writing programs teach students how to research and analyze the law and communicate it to their constituencies.

Maria Crist, director of UD’s Legal Profession Program, attributes the program’s success to faculty who are on the cutting edge of the legal writing profession.

"Our faculty are frequent presenters at national and regional conferences, publish in the field, and serve on committees and boards of legal writing organizations." said Crist. "Former director Rebecca Cochran was on the board of the Association of Legal Writing Directors and was instrumental in bringing the program into the national focus."

Crist said advanced technology in the school’s Keller Hall also gives students an advantage when it comes to online research, using Web-based course materials and submitting assignments using an innovative e-filing program developed by the UD Research Institute.

UD has been ranked among the nation’s most wired or connected, and even unwired, for its use of wireless technology by Yahoo!, Intel Corp. and the Princeton Review.

"Because specialty rankings are based on colleagues’ opinions, our success in letting them know about our program is based on our external efforts," said Crist, the 1996 LexisNexis Legal Research and Writing Award recipient and author of a Journal of Legal Writing article on integrating technology in a legal research and writing curriculum. "We are fortunate to have dedicated and talented individuals teaching in the our program and an administration that supports our scholarship and ability to attend conferences."

UD’s School of Law, which will host the Great Lakes regional legal writing consortium for a one-day conference on teaching legal research May 20, tied for 20th with Georgetown University, Lewis and Clark College, South Texas College of Law and the University of St. Thomas.