Learn More About Tom
Tom’s Mission
Tom founded his business with a clear mission: to help attorneys write better.
Tom has devoted over a quarter century of his professional life to this mission. His experience informs his beliefs: writing skills can be taught, writing skills can be learned, and everyone can improve—always. Tom’s instructional methods, inspirational style, and adroit mindset bring these beliefs to fruition for his clients.
Tom possesses all the interpersonal and professional skills elite educators require.
- He loves teaching—and imbues his training with passion, principle, and patience.
- He cares deeply that attorneys learn, so he stays current with best teaching practices.
- He instills in his clients the conviction that they can and will write more effectively—and ensures that they do.
Tom’s professional training helps attorneys write more confidently, efficiently, and cogently. Not only does he help attorneys become better writers but he also helps them unlock the joy and artistry in their work as they master their craft.
Tom’s Biography
The Legal Writing Teacher
Tom founded his business to do more of what he loves: teach. He provides legal writing programs about writing strategies and techniques for a wide array of clients, including prominent law firms, in-house counsel, government agencies, public interest organizations, and CLE providers. He also provides legal writing coaching for firms who seek to provide their attorneys with elite writing support. Tom works with both litigation and transactional attorneys, offering writing training that specifically relates to their practice areas.
Attorney Advancement and Retention
Tom also offers writing training to support attorneys from historically underrepresented groups. Tom serves as the writing instructor for the National Bar Association’s Associate Advancement Academy for Excellence. The National Bar Association is “the nation’s oldest and largest national network of predominately African-American attorneys and judges.” The NBA’s Academy “is specifically intended to facilitate the advancement and retention of current and future NBA members in the nation’s largest law firms.” His legal writing programs for the Academy teach effective writing techniques to help the Academy’s Fellows succeed and advance early in their careers. This training is geared to both litigation and transactional attorneys. Tom provides individual writing coaching to the Fellows too.
Award-Winning Legal Educator
Before founding his business, Tom directed and taught in UCLA School of Law’s Lawyering Skills Clinical Program for nearly two decades, teaching practice-oriented legal analysis, writing strategies, and persuasive writing techniques. He also taught the Program’s Writing Advisor Seminar, an advanced legal writing and editing course for upper-level students who provided writing assistance to 1L’s in the Program. As director of the Program, Tom proved he is a problem-solver who can provide creative teaching solutions to seemingly insoluble writing problems. He revamped the curricula for the Lawyering Skills course and the Writing Advisor Seminar. And he co-created and taught an academic success class titled “Introduction to Legal Analysis,” a legal methods course for incoming 1L students that provided an immersive experience in the process of legal argument.
Tom received the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching—the highest teaching honor at UCLA School of Law. And he authored A Journey of Faith, Love, and Teaching, an expanded essay version of his Rutter Award speech published by the UCLA Law Review Discourse. Tom also received UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award—a university-wide honor—in just his fourth year of teaching.
Credentials, Ninth Circuit Clerkship, and Big Law Practice
Tom graduated magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota School of Law. He served as Notes and Comments editor for the University of Minnesota Law Review and was elected to The Order of the Coif. He then clerked for the Honorable Arthur L. Alarcon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After his clerkship, Tom worked as a litigation and bank regulatory attorney in the Los Angeles office of Morrison & Foerster LLP.
Discounted Rates for Writing Training Offered to Government Agencies.
Tom offers his legal writing programs to government agencies at discounted rates.
Pro Bono Writing Training for Public Interest Legal Organizations
Tom offers his legal writing programs pro bono to public interest legal organizations.