Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference Returns to Arizona Law, Legal Writing Scholars Discuss Emerging Challenges and Opportunities in Legal Writing and Law
The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law Legal Writing Program, ranked #8 overall and #5 among public law schools by U.S. News & World Report, recently hosted the 24th annual Rocky Mountain Regional Legal Writing Conference, bringing together leading legal writing scholars from across the country to discuss emerging challenges and opportunities in legal writing and law.
The conference, held on March 13 and 14, 2026, centered on the theme of “Resilient Roots, Flourishing Futures: Cultivating Legal Writers Who Can Thrive in Any Terrain.” According to Director of Legal Writing and Clinical Professor of Law Susie Salmon, this theme reflects current issues facing legal education and the legal profession, including attacks on the rule of law, imminent and significant changes to the bar exam, the accelerated law-firm hiring timeline and the emergence of generative AI.
“The legal writing community has been at the forefront of adapting to this constant change in recent years. We’ve also led in thinking about how best to prepare students for the rapidly evolving landscape, both in legal education and in the profession,” said Salmon.
Gen AI in classroom and career
This year’s conference featured more than 40 sessions on topics like pedagogy, rhetorical theory and practice readiness for students. One track was devoted to addressing topics around generative AI, such as the Bluebook’s controversial new rule on citation to AI and how and when and how law students should use gen AI tools in their coursework.
“I think the sense is that most students, very understandably, are wary of generative AI and its highly publicized pitfalls. I think they’re rightly hesitant to use it as a drafting tool, and that the consensus is it’s better used as either a revision tool with significant oversight, or for other things like workflow management, or brainstorming or things like that,” remarked Salmon. “Although several presentations were optimistic about how generative AI might enable lawyers to serve clients in a more cost-effective manner, expanding access to justice, even those presenters also highlighted the continuing challenges even with tools that are specifically tailored for use by attorneys, the continuing pitfalls of relying uncritically on those tools and the need to train students who have the critical thinking and sound judgment required to use AI ethically and effectively.”
Opportunities for new scholars
The Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference was founded in 2000 by three professors— Suzanne Rabe (’79) from Arizona Law, Judy Stinson (’88) from Arizona State University (ASU) Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and Terrill Pollman (’90) from UNLV Boyd School of Law—as an informal exchange of teaching ideas among legal writing professors from schools in the loosely defined “Rocky Mountain” region.
Throughout its history, the conference has focused on providing an accessible forum for legal writing scholars. For example, registration has always been free to all attendees. It also has provided presentation opportunities for early-career academics.
“The conference has been fertile ground for people to both start their scholarly careers and grow their scholarly careers,” said Salmon. “When we asked at the conference how many people gave their first presentations at a Rocky Mountain Legal Writing conference, virtually every hand in the room shot up. I know I personally have presented every single thing I’ve ever published at least once at a Rocky Mountain Conference.”
More than 80 people attended the conference at no charge thanks to financial support from conference sponsors Aspen Publishing; Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law; Bloomberg Law; Carolina Academic Press; LexisNexis; Thomson Reuters; University of Nevada, Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law; and Write.law.