Emily Zimmerman is an experienced law professor with expertise in legal methods and
criminal procedure.
Professor Zimmerman came to Drexel from Villanova University School of Law, where she was
an associate professor of legal writing. As an academic visitor at the School of Law of
the City University of Hong Kong, she was course leader for a legal writing and drafting
course in the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws program.
She has given presentations at numerous regional, national and international conferences,
including a seminar on teaching legal methods in Pidgirtsi, Ukraine for the American Bar
Association Rule of Law Initiative, a conference on the pedagogy of legal writing in
Nairobi, Kenya and a conference on global legal skills in Monterrey, Mexico.
Professor Zimmerman has served on the Professional Development Committee of the Legal
Writing Institute, on the board of Academics Promoting the Pedagogy of Effective Advocacy
in Law and as co-editor of the Legal Writing Journal of the Social Science Research
Network.
Before teaching, Professor Zimmerman was the chief of the Civil and Exceptional
Litigation Unit for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where she had also
supervised the Municipal Court Unit and worked as a trial prosecutor.
Her publications focus on the teaching of legal writing and legal methods. Published
articles include “Toto, I Don’t Think We’re in Practice Anymore: Making the Transition
from Editing as a Practitioner to Giving Feedback as a Legal Writing Professor,” in
Perspectives, and “The Proverbial Tree Falling in the Legal Writing Forest: Ensuring that
Students Receive and Read Our Feedback on Their Final Assignments,” in Perspectives.
Professor Zimmerman clerked in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit after
graduating from Yale Law School.
Articles
Unpublished Papers
