Free WMU-Cooley Law seminar on legal writing set for November 1

The newly created Kimble Center for Legal Drafting at WMU-Cooley Law School will hold its first public seminar 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 1, at the Lansing campus, 300 S. Capitol Ave., Room 911, Lansing; and live streamed at the Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids, and Tampa Bay campuses.

The seminar is free to attorneys and students.

Three legal-drafting experts—WMU-Cooley Professor Mark Cooney, Professor Emeritus Joseph Kimble, and attorney Jeffrey Ammon of Miller Johnson—will present a four-hour program, useful to attorneys who draft rules, wills and trusts, business and real-estate documents, bylaws, etc.

The center is named for Kimble, an internationally recognized expert on plain language and legal drafting. Kimble taught legal research and writing at WMU–Cooley for more than 30 years and serves as a drafting consultant to the Standing Committee on Federal Court Rules. His work in restyling the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence earned him two prestigious Burton Awards for Reform in Law.

Kimble has authored three books on the value and practice of plain language in law and government, and has edited the Michigan Bar Journal’s “Plain Language” column for three decades.