Mary C. Daly Professor of Legal WritingVice Dean for Student Success
J.D. University of California at Berkeley School of LawB.A. University of California
In addition to serving as the Vice Dean for Student Success, Rachel H. Smith teaches Legal Writing, Legal Research, and Law & Literature.
Rachel is the author of two legal writing books: The Handbook for the New Legal Writer (with Jill Barton) and The Legal Writing Survival Guide. Both books aim to demystify the process of legal writing and serve as a source of encouragement for beginning and more experienced legal writers. Rachel has presented at national and regional legal writing conferences on topics including teaching with positivity, using popular non-fiction in the legal writing classroom, and the pedagogy of using examples. In 2009, Rachel received a grant from the Association of Legal Writing Directors to prepare a series of legal writing podcasts called “Perk Up Your Pens.”
Before coming to St. John’s, Rachel was a founding member of the Legal Communication and Research Skills faculty at the University of Miami School of Law. In addition to teaching the first-year legal writing course, she developed a popular course on Advanced Techniques in Written Persuasion. Before that, she was part of the Legal Analysis Research and Writing Faulty at Santa Clara University School of Law, where she was twice awarded the Legal Writing Teacher of the Year Award.
Rachel received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. After graduation, she worked as a litigator in the San Francisco office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP where she worked on a variety of intellectual property disputes for toy, tech, and casino gaming companies.
The Trailblazing Way of KBJ with Jill Barton, 22 LEGAL COMM. & RHETORIC 71 (2025).
Inspiration & Frustration: Review of Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America by Dahlia Lithwick, 21 LEGAL COMM. & RHETORIC 179 (2024).
Bad Cases/Good Assignments, 36 Legal Writing Institute: The Second Draft (November 2023).
The Critique is on the Glass, Stetson Law Review Forum: Unending Conversations 2023 No. 5 (Spring 2023).
The Kids are Alright with Rosa Castello, 35 Legal Writing Institute: The Second Draft (December 2022).
We Are in This Together: A Faculty Led Approach to Fostering Innovation in Online Instruction book chapter with Courtney Selby in Law Teaching Strategies for a New Era, Carolina Academic Press (2021).
The Right Time to Learn in Proceedings: An Online Journal of Legal Writing Conference Presentations (Fall 2021).
The Handbook for the New Legal Writer with Jill Barton, Wolters Kluwer 2d ed. 2019.
The Legal Writing Survival Guide, Carolina Academic Press 2012.
Review of The Legal Imagination by James Boyd White, 18 Scribes J. Leg. Writing 145 (2018-2019).
The Unparalleled Benefits of Teaching Parallelism, 32 The Second Draft 26 (Spring 2019).
More Than Words, Review of My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, 14 Legal Comm. & Rhetoric: JALWD 159 (2017).
Finding Joy in Commenting, AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research Newsletter 16 (Summer 2017).
The Care and Feeding of Law School Research Assistants, 25 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 101 (2017).
From Students to Colleagues: The Legal Writing Classroom Can Create Conscientious and Empathetic Practitioners, The Second Draft, Winter/Spring 2015.
An Offer They Can’t Refuse: Teaching Persuasive Writing Through a Settlement Offer Email Assignment, with Alyssa Dragnich, 23 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 85 (2014).
Perk Up Your Pens Legal Writing Podcast, available at http://perkupyourpens.tumblr.com.
“Lessons Learned the Hard Way: Tips for Newer Research and Writing Professors” panelist at the 2026 Legal Writing Institute Biennial Conference
“Stop Checking LinkedIn: How Law School Administrators Can Help Students Survive the New Recruiting Calendar” with Sarah J. Kelly at the 2026 ABA Associate Deans Conference
“Unmuting the Textrovert” at the 2026 Empire State Legal Writing Conference
“From Legal Writing to the Deans’ Suite: Student-Centered Leadership” at the 2025 Association of Legal Writing Directors Biennial Conference
“Creating a Culture of Care: Policy & Practice” with Sarah J. Kelly at the 2025 ABA Associate Deans Conference Plenary
“Find Your Red Threads: Rethinking Faculty Engagement to Combat Burnout and Rediscover Your Joy and Meaning in Your Work” discussant at the 2023 Association of Legal Writing Directors Biennial Conference
“NextGen LRW for the NextGen Bar” at the 2024 Legal Writing Institute Biennial Conference
“Synergies: Finding & Fostering a Successful Legal Writing Collaboration” at the 2022 Legal Writing Institute Biennial Conference
“Hide & Seek: Balancing Anonymity & Individualized Attention” at the 2021 LWI One-Day Conference and 2022 Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference
“The Empathy Machine” at the 2022 Association of Legal Writing Directors Conference
“Pink Collar Pedagogy” at the 2022 COVID Care Crisis Symposium
“The Evolving Legal Writing Curriculum,” with Jill Barton at the Empire State Biennial Legal Writing Conference, May 2019.
“Thinking Deeper,” at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Conference, August 2018.
“Pink Collar Pedagogy,” at the LWI Biennial Conference, July 2018.
“A New Approach to Research Assistants,” at the Southeastern Regional Legal Writing Conference, January 2016.
“Honest to Blog: Using Blogs to Instill a Sense of the Professional Audience,” at the Western Regional Legal Writing Conference, September 2014.
“Thinking Deeper,” with Jill Barton at the LWI Biennial Conference, July 2014.
“Do As I Say,” at the Southeastern Regional Legal Writing Conference, April 2014.