Stetson Law Associate Professor Elizabeth Berenguer has published a new book aimed at helping students on Law Review, new professors embarking on the scholarly writing process, and experienced professors frustrated with scholarship.
“The Legal Scholars Guidebook,” a companion for seminar or other paper-based courses, demystifies academic legal writing by providing concrete advice on topic selection, research strategies, and analytical frameworks.
The book features:
- Chapter Brainstorms that contain questions guiding entry into stages of the research and writing process;
- Squelch the Impostor tips that include advice to manage stress inherent at each stage of the research and writing process;
- Specific assignments to methodically guide the scholar through each stage; and
- Examples, guides, and checklists that provide samples to help the scholar understand expectations at each stage.
“The legal profession and academia are hierarchical and elitist institutions,” Berenguer explained. “With this book, I have endeavored to reveal much of the mystery that shrouds the scholarly writing process so that people who are new to the field can understand expectations and successfully produce scholarly work.”
Budding scholars will find it a reassuring guide through a demanding process, and experienced scholars will find it a source of encouragement. Berenguer was motivated to write the book because there was a lack of good textbooks to teach students how to write a scholarly paper. First year legal writing programs are geared much more toward legal analysis for practice, not scholarship, and books that existed before provided an incomplete overview of the process.
“They gave a lot of information about what to do, but no information about how to do it. My book gives the how to do it part,” she said.
Jamie R. Abrams, a professor at the University of Louisville – Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, reviewed the book for the Journal of Legal Education and highlighted another important benefit: by addressing the concepts of inclusivity, accessibility and imposter syndrome head on, “this guidebook might guide us all to a more inclusive and inviting place uplifting new scholarly voices.”
“For readers of this book in modern political, economic, and social times, it might be a springboard to deeper conversations about the chasms between the communities that feel like they belong in legal scholarship and those that do not,” Abrams wrote. “It might call for us all to strengthen the intentionality of our mentoring of students of color, nontraditional students, LGBTQ students, and women students. There has never been a better moment for us all to revisit how we produce and define ‘good’ scholarship, the breadth of the scholarly voices we reproduce and consume, and the entrenched assumptions and hierarchies that shape our scholarly practices.”
Berenguer joined the faculty at Stetson Law in August 2020 as an associate professor of law. She began teaching law in 2008 and has taught a variety of courses including legal research and writing, advanced legal writing, pretrial litigation, transactional drafting, appellate advocacy, criminal law, and foundations of legal scholarship.
“The Legal Scholars Guidebook” is available from Wolters Kluwer and Amazon.
