Sharing writing expertise
by Catherine Deyarmond
After stints working in Big Law and having her own practice, Melissa Shultz, J.D., St. Mary’s University Assistant Dean for Legal Writing and Professor of Law, found her true calling in the classroom.
Although Shultz had a rude awakening moving to South Texas from Minnesota in the middle of the summer, she is enjoying the welcoming St. Mary’s Law community and teaching everything from Legal Research and Writing to Texas Family Law to her law students.
Shultz shares how she arrived at St. Mary’s Law and her plans for redesigning its legal writing program.
Q: Could you tell us about yourself?
A: After graduating from The University of Texas in Austin, taking the Texas bar exam, and getting married all within a few months, I headed to Washington, D.C., to practice at King & Spalding. As a practitioner, I was a litigator, specializing in criminal and civil antitrust law. Then, after leaving Big Law, I opened my own law firm and ghostwrote for law firms across Texas.
I became a law professor a bit later in life, believe it or not, by accident. But the first day I stepped into the classroom, I realized I had landed — albeit through a circuitous route — right where I was meant to be. From that first day in class, teaching has not felt like a job. Instead, it’s a privilege.
In terms of my personal life, I am a mom of two teenage girls and two wildly energetic goldendoodles. I have never met a podcast or a ball of raw cookie dough I do not like!
Q: What’s it like being a new professor at St. Mary’s?
A: Candidly, because I moved here mid-summer from Minnesota, being a new professor is summed up with three words: hot and humid. Joking aside, being new to the St. Mary’s community has been invigorating and welcoming.
Q: What are your plans for redesigning the legal writing program?
A: I hope to recenter the legal writing curriculum on the skills students need to be successful in law school and practice: legal reading, writing, analysis, research and advocacy. Over time, we will then use the redesigned first-year curriculum as a springboard to develop a robust upper-level writing curriculum designed to ensure that St. Mary’s continues to produce top-notch, practice-ready lawyers.
Q: What are your research areas?
A: My scholarship focuses on legal writing, legal education, law school curricular reform and the NextGen bar exam.
Q: What’s your favorite thing about San Antonio?
A: Hands down it is Pullman Market in the San Antonio Pearl District. If you have not been there, you need to go. I mean, go now. Great food, cool vibe, and if you time it right you might even catch some live music. After dinner, wander over to Lick Honest Ice Creams for some creatively flavored ice cream.
Q: What’s your best advice for current law students?
A: Be kind to one another. Start planning for the bar exam — financially and time-wise —on Day One of law school. Remain curious and lifelong learners.
Q: Is there anything else we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention?
A: My major flex is that I can slalom ski on a canoe paddle. I am also terrified of riding horses. And, in the midst of moving across the country this summer, I published my second legal writing textbook, Legal Writing Made Simple.
