Craig T. Smith

Clinical Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Assistant Dean for the Writing and Learning Resources Center

Areas of Expertise

  • Academic Support
  • Legal Education
  • Legal Research
  • Legal Writing

Biography

Craig T. Smith joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2010 and now serves as Clinical Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Assistant Dean for the Writing and Learning Resources Center. That center operates Carolina’s nationally ranked legal writing program and an Academic Excellence Program.

Smith’s teaching and research interests focus mainly on legal research and writing. His courses include Research, Reasoning, Writing, & Advocacy I & II, the Honors Writing Scholar Seminar and Lab, and Writing for Practice. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals and on various committees of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI), has chaired and served on accreditation teams for the American Bar Association, and has been the president and a board member of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD). In 2021, ALWD and LWI awarded him the Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing.

Smith attended Michigan Law School, serving on its law review and graduating cum laude. He practiced law at Pierce Atwood in Portland, Maine, worked for a court and a ministry in Germany as a Bosch Fellow, and earned an LL.M. magna cum laude from the Universitaet Potsdam. He also clerked for Judge James Carr of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, taught at Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law, and directed the legal writing program at Vanderbilt University Law School.

Education

  • LL.M. (magna cum laude), Universitäet Potsdam (Germany) (1995)
  • J.D. (cum laude), University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1991)
  • B.A. (Phi Beta Kappa), Government, College of William and Mary (1985)

Selected Publications

Treating Professionals Professionally: Requiring Security of Position for All Skills-Focused Faculty Under ABA Accreditation Standard 405(C) and Eliminating 405(D) (with J. L. Entrikin, S. Salmon, K. Tiscione, and M. Weresh), 98 OR. L. REV. 1 (2019).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | Hein | BEPress

Border-Crossing: Genre Discovery and the Portability of Legal Writing Instruction (A. Chew and C. Smith), 25 PERSP.: TEACHING LEGAL RES. & WRITING 8 (2016).
Westlaw

Readying Ourselves to Provide Effective, Timely Feedback, SECOND DRAFT: BULL. OF THE LEGAL WRITING INST. August 2007, at 13.

Minds and Levers: Reflections on Howard Gardner's Changing Minds, 14 PERSP.: TEACHING LEGAL RES. & WRITING 116 (2006).
Westlaw

Report: Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court), in 2-3 ANNUAL OF GERMAN & EUROPEAN LAW (R. Miller & P. Zumbansen eds., 2006).
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The Uncertain Limits of the European Court of Justice's Authority: Economic Freedom Versus Human Dignity (with T. Fetzer), 10 COLUM. J. OF EUR. L. 445 (2004).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | Hein

More Disagreement Over Human Dignity: The Federal Constitutional Court's Most Recent Benetton Advertising Decision, 4 GERMAN L.J. 533 (June 1, 2003).
Lexis/Nexis | Hein | BEPress | Document Link

Teaching Students How to Learn in Your Course: The Learning-Centered Course Manual, 12 PERSP.: TEACHING LEGAL RES. & WRITING 1 (2003).
Westlaw

Technology and Legal Education: Negotiating the Shoals of Technocentrism, Technophobia, and Indifference, 1 J. ASSOC. OF LEGAL WRITING DIRECTORS 247 (2002).
Westlaw | SSRN

Synergy and Synthesis: Teaming Socratic Method with Computers and Data Projectors to Teach Synthesis, 7 LEGAL WRITING 113 (2001).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | Hein