James C. Raymond

Formerly editor of College English and Director of English Composition at the University of Alabama, Professor James C. Raymond, Ph.D. is currently an independent scholar and legal writing consultant based in New York. He is also founder and president of the International Institute for Legal Writing and Reasoning.

Professor Raymond has lectured on legal writing throughout the United States and in Antigua, Australia, Canada, England, Ethiopia, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Malawi, Mauritius, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, The People’s Republic of China, The Philippines, Rwanda, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

His has conducted programs on legal writing and reasoning for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and for The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (with representatives from Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts). He is scheduled to conduct a program for the East Africa Court of Justice in September 2010.

His publications include Clear Understandings: A Guide to Legal Writing (Random House, with Ronald L. Goldfarb); Writing Is an Unnatural Act (Harper); Literacy as Human Problem (UAP); English as a Discipline: or, Is There a Plot in this Play (UAP); Moves Writers Make (Prentice-Hall); and articles in the Pepperdine Law Review, the Alabama Law Review, The Judicial Review: Journal of the Judicial Commission of New South Wales, and other scholarly journals.

His most recent book is Writing for the Court (Carswell, 2010).

He serves on the faculty for the annual program in Criminal Law sponsored by the Canadian Federation of Law Societies, and as the language consultant to develop plain language jury instructions (Ontario Court, Criminal Division, and the Canadian Judicial Council).