South Texas College of Law Houston hosted the 2026 Lone Star Legal Writing Conference in early April, focusing on “Bridging the Classroom-Practice Gap” and featuring a dozen judges and legal practitioners as plenary speakers.
“The conference was excellent and expertly run,” said one law professor. “I can safely say this was the best legal writing conference I have been to in a very long time.” Other participants described the event as “successful and engaging” and “fun, creative, and impactful.”
Approximately 70 legal writing professors from across the region and as far away as California and New York gained legal writing insights from judges and legal practitioners during the event. The conference was planned and coordinated by South Texas Law Professors D’Andra Shu and Katherine Vukadin.
Shu said, “It was a pleasure hosting the Lone Star Legal Writing Conference this year. We are especially proud of our student legal writing ambassadors who helped the conference run smoothly and made our guests feel welcome.”
This annual gathering is a cornerstone event for legal writing professors and educators dedicated to advancing the crafts of legal writing, research, and advocacy in Texas and beyond. Attendees connected with practitioners and judges who are passionate about legal writing so they could better align their teaching with the approaches that judges and practitioners value.
The Hon. Jennifer W. Elrod, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, presented the luncheon keynote. In sharing her ongoing journey as a legal writer, she encouraged attendees to read others’ opinions and articles to enrich their own writing and to always proofread multiple times — preferably with a printed document and a ruler in hand.
“I greatly enjoyed speaking to this excellent group,” Elrod said. “It is so wonderful to be among people who love writing and are sharing interesting ideas with one another about the craft of legal writing. One should never cease improving at the craft. It is a lifelong project.”
Some of the presentation topics included “Teaching Legal Writing When Everyone has AI,” “Creating Practice-Ready Lawyers — Gen Z Edition,” and “The Passive Voice: More Than a Style Choice in Statutory Interpretation.”
One law partner noted, “This is a great event bringing professors together with the judiciary and practitioners to ensure the next generation of lawyers are prepared for legal writing after law school.”
Event summary, by the numbers:
- 1 luncheon keynote was presented by Chief Judge Elrod
- 2 professors coordinated the conference
- 6 firms or businesses sent practitioners
- 7 current judges spoke
- 7 states’ professors attended from (TX, CA, FL, MD, NY, NC, OK)
- 10 law firms and businesses plus STCL financially sponsored the event
- 17 law schools were represented
- 25 STCL Houston students volunteered as legal writing ambassadors
- 27 sessions were offered in 3 tracks by 12 judges and legal practitioners and numerous legal writing professors
“We at South Texas Law teach legal writing skills that are immediately useful in practice, so we built the conference around the ‘bridging the classroom-practice gap’ theme,” Vukadin said. “We are thrilled that some of Houston’s top judges and practitioners accepted our invitation and shared such useful insights.”
Judicial speakers were Judge Jeffrey Brown, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas; Chief Justice Terry Adams, First Court of Appeals; Judge Grant Dorfman, Texas Business Court and STCL Houston adjunct professor; Justice Veronica-Rivas Molloy, First Court of Appeals; Justice April Farris, Fifteenth Court of Appeals and STCL Houston adjunct professor; and Judge Juli A. Mathew, County Court at Law 3, Fort Bend County.
Legal practitioners who shared their knowledge were Peter Stuhldreher, partner at BakerHostetler; Kenneth Krock, Partner at Rapp & Krock, PC; Randy Nolen, partner at Kherkher Garcia LLP; Beau Carter, senior associate at Baker Botts; Raffi Melkonian, partner at Wright Close Barger & Guzman, LLP, and adjunct professor at STCL Houston; and Shane McKinney, senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief ethics and compliance officer at CenterPoint Energy, and an STCL Houston adjunct professor.
One judge noted, “Conversations like these help bridge the gap between the classroom and courtroom practice, and I appreciated the thoughtful discussion with such an engaged group of educators.”
