Legal Writing Faculty
Derek H. Kiernan-Johnson

Legal Writing Professor
Legal Writing; Appellate Court Advocacy; Judicial Opinion Writing

University of Colorado Law School
448 Wolf Law Building
401 UCB
Boulder, CO  80309-0401
Phone: (303) 492-5863
E-mail: derek.kiernan-johnson@colorado.edu

Curriculum Vitae:  View (PDF format)

Educational Background:
J.D.	Michigan Law School	2000
B.A.	Princeton University	1997

Bio:

Derek Kiernan-Johnson studies how lawyers and judges write, why they write that way, and what can be done about it. His current scholarship focuses on the roles that narrative, rhetoric, and visual semiotics play in legal communication. In his teaching he strives to help students gain fluency and confidence in the language of the law, chart meaningful and sustainable career paths, understand the contemporary American judicial opinion in historical and comparative context, and reflect critically on law's role in society.

Derek received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, where he studied religion, dramatic performance, and music. He brought these perspectives to bear in his work at the Raphael J. Moses Mesoamerican Archive, culminating in Experiencing Toxcatl: an Ixiptla's Perspective (1996), a multi-disciplinary study of an Aztec sacrifice from the sacrificee's point of view. He developed this approach further by traveling to Bayreuth, Germany, to study composer Richard Wagner and write Durch Sühn und Buß der Gnade Heil: Spiritual Suffering and Religious Salvation in the Operas of Richard Wagner (1997).

After completing his undergraduate work, he studied English cathedral architecture at Wadham College at Oxford University and then attended law school at the University of Michigan. His studies at Michigan focused on constitutional law, education law, and meaning and performance in the law, the last interest of which culminated in his 1999 study Meaning in Miranda. Following law school, he returned to Colorado to clerk for the Honorable Justice Michael L. Bender of the Colorado Supreme Court. He then practiced law for six years at Caplan and Earnest, LLC, where he counseled and advocated for public-school clients in a variety of general-counsel, transactional, and litigation settings.

He lives in Boulder with his wife Eileen, son Ronan, and daughter Kelsey, where he enjoys hiking, birding, food and drink, photography, design, and classical music.

Articles

A Shift to Narrativity, 9 Legal Comm. & Rhetoric 81 (2012).

Telling Through Type: Typography and Narrative in Legal Briefs, 7 J. Ass’n Legal Writing Directors 87 (Fall 2010).

Courses:

Spring 2013	Legal Writing II	LAWS 5223-806
Spring 2013	Judicial Opinion Writing	LAWS 6236-001
Fall 2012	Legal Writing I	LAWS 5226-806
Spring 2012	Legal Writing II	LAWS 5223-806
Spring 2012	Judicial Opinion Writing	LAWS 6236-001
Fall 2011	Legal Writing I	LAWS 5226-806
Spring 2011	Legal Writing II	LAWS 5223-806
Fall 2010	Legal Writing I	LAWS 5226-806
Spring 2010	Legal Writing II	LAWS 5223-806
Spring 2010	Judicial Opinion Writing	LAWS 6236-001
Fall 2009	Legal Writing I	LAWS 5226-806
Spring 2009	Legal Writing II	LAWS 5223-806
Spring 2009	Judicial Opinion Writing	LAWS 6236-001
Fall 2008	Legal Writing I	LAWS 5226-806
Spring 2008	Legal Writing II	LAWS 5223-806