Director - Craig Smith
Associate Professor of Law
Director of Legal Writing
LL.M. Universität Potsdam (Germany)
J.D. University of Michigan
B.A. College of William & Mary
Curriculum vitae (.pdf)
Room No. 232
Phone: (615) 343-4832
Fax: (615) 322-6631
Email: craig.smith@vanderbilt.edu
A well-known scholar and conference speaker in the field of legal writing, Craig T. Smith serves as president of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and as a member of the editorial boards of Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing and German Law Journal. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty, Professor Smith served as a clerk for U.S. District Judge James Carr, and as an associate at Pierce Atwood in Portland, Maine. He has also worked as a Bosch Foundation Fellow with Germany's Federal Justice Ministry and various courts, and taught at Germany's Potsdam University and at Pennsylvania State University's Dickinson School of Law. In addition to directing and teaching in Vanderbilt's Legal Writing Program, Professor Smith, who has published a number of articles and translations regarding German law, teaches a course for international LL.M. students and often teaches in Germany.
Representative Publications
- "Minds and Levers: Reflections on Howard Gardner’s Changing Minds," 14 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research & Writing 116 (2006)
- "Report on the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (German Federal Administrative Court) for 2005/2006," in 3 Annual of German and European Law (Russell Miller & Peer Zumbansen, eds., Berghahn Books, forthcoming 2007)
- "Equality Rights, United States of America," in Fundamental Rights in Europe and North America, Part B (Albrecht Weber, ed., Kluwer Law International, forthcoming)
- "The Uncertain Limits of the European Court of Justice's Authority: Economic Freedom Versus Human Dignity," 10 Columbia Journal of European Law (2004) (co-authored with Thomas Fetzer)
- "Constitutional Drift: Toward the End of Federal Shop-Closing (Ladenschluss) Regulation," 5 German Law Journal No. 9 (2004)
- "New Transatlantic Tension and the Kagan Phenomenon: A Primer," 6 German Law Journal No. 9 (2003)
- "More Disagreement Over Human Dignity: Federal Constitutional Court's Most Recent Benetton Advertising Decision," 4 German Law Journal No. 6 (2003)
- "Depositions and the Court," 32 Tort & Insurance Law Journal 635 (1997) (co-authored with Hon. James G. Carr)
Courses
European Union Law
Introduction to Legal Research and Scholarly Writing in the United States
Legal Writing I
Legal Writing II
