Associate Professor of Legal Writing. B.A., Wellesley
College (magna cum laude); J.D., Georgetown University Law Center
(cum laude).
Before joining the law faculty in 2003, Professor Montana was a
litigation associate at the New York office of Latham &
Watkins. While at Latham & Watkins, Professor Montana
practiced complex civil litigation, concentrating on intellectual
property matters. She also committed considerable time to pro
bono work, including representing low-income battered women in
custody, child support, and divorce proceedings. Professor
Montana was also a member of the firm’s Paralegal Committee, which
hired, supervised, and trained
paralegals.
Professor Montana has also volunteered as a law teacher to
seventh-grade students at the Mott Hall School, an intermediate
school located in Harlem, New York. There,
she taught a practical law class designed to develop the
students’ problem solving, writing, and reading skills through
instruction of legal principles in the areas of criminal, tort,
family, and individual rights law.
In addition to her teaching at St. John’s, Professor Montana was
a visiting professor at Hofstra University School of Law during the
summer 2006, where she taught Legal Writing and
Research. She is also an adjunct professor in the
Legal Studies Department at Montclair State University in
Montclair, New Jersey. There, she teaches the courses
Foundations of Legal Research, Wills, Trusts &
Probate Law, and Legal
Writing.
At St. John's, Professor Montana currently teaches
Legal Writing and Legal Research and
Writing. She is also the founder of the current Street Law
Program. She teaches the Street Law Externship
Seminar and oversees the Street Law Externship
Placement. In that program, law students teach a
practical law course to students at Jamaica High School.
While serving the Queens community, law students develop practical
legal knowledge, professional responsibility, and important
lawyering skills, such as the ability to organize complex legal
ideas and communicate them effectively to an audience of non-
lawyers.
In addition to those courses, Professor Montana has previously
taught the Federal Civil Practice Seminar, Summer
Clinical Externship Seminar, Introduction to the Law and
Legal Profession, as well as Legal Skills in the
Summer Institute Program.
Professor Montana is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She is
also a member of the New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bar
Associations.