John L. Cook, Marissa C. Meredith and Sara L. Ochs join the law school's Legal Method & Communication Program beginning in July for a two-year fellowship to teach legal writing to incoming Elon Law students.
Three new educators will join the Elon University School of Law writing faculty this summer to teach legal skills courses to students during their first year of study.
John L. Cook, Marissa C. Meredith and Sara L. Ochs are the latest additions to the Legal Method & Communication Program, which is woven through Elon Law’s first-year curriculum. The program’s integrated, immersive, and iterative writing and research curriculum coordinates with Elon Law faculty who teach doctrinal courses.
“It is exciting to welcome the new Fellows to the law school,” said Professor Sue Liemer, director of the Legal Method & Communication Program. “They have experience with the quickly changing realities of law practice today, from a variety of work settings. I look forward to seeing the new ideas and approaches they will bring to the program.”
Cook comes to Elon Law from Northern Marianas College where he has served for much of the past year as archivist for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. He previously worked for the Commonwealth as an assistant attorney general in the civil division of the Office of the Attorney General and has experience teaching professional responsibility and undergraduate criminal justice-related courses.
A 2004 graduate of Duke University School of Law, with a master’s degree in criminology and criminal justice from Oxford University, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, Cook has also clerked for two U.S. District Court judges (the Hon. Landya McCafferty and the Hon. Frank Whitney) and Associate Justice Alexandro Castro of the Supreme Court of the Northern Mariana Islands.
“I am thrilled to be serving as a Legal Method and Communication Fellow at Elon Law,” Cook said. “Having worked as both a law clerk and a government attorney, I’ve seen the enormous impact effective legal writing and communication skills can have on whether a lawyer succeeds or fails. I look forward to sharing what I’ve learned with Elon Law’s students.”
An attorney with the Law Offices of T. Greg Doucette in Durham, N.C., Meredith has spent much of the past two years also serving as a bar preparation tutor with Barbri and, more recently, assisting students at N.C. Central School of Law with individual and group mentoring as a 1L Success Coach.
Meredith graduated in 2015 from N.C. Central School of Law where she was a member of the Law Review, the Student Bar Association, and the African Law Student Association. Meredith led her law school’s chapter of the Phi Delta Phi International Legal Honor Society in 2013-14, and she served with the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association during her second and third years at N.C. Central. Meredith earned her Bachelor of Arts in government from the College of William & Mary.
“Effective communication is the linchpin to effective advocacy, whether you’re in a courtroom or a boardroom,” Meredith said. “I look forward to bringing my experience in corporate law to help these students become effective advocates in the boardrooms of tomorrow.”
Ochs brings to Elon Law nearly three years of practice experience in consumer financial services, torts, and insurance litigation. Most recently an associate attorney in the New Orleans office of Akerman LLP, where she defends financial institutions and mortgage servicers in state and federal litigation, Ochs earlier served as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana. She currently serves as the Year in Review editor and vice chair of the American Bar Association’s International Courts and Judicial Affairs Committee.
Ochs is a 2014 graduate of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. She graduated second in her class after serving on the Loyola Law Review, as a member of Loyola’s Willem C. Vis Moot International Commercial Arbitration Team, and as both a teaching and research assistant. The former collegiate cross country and track athlete graduated magna cum laude with a degree in international business from Loyola University Maryland.
“I am incredibly honored to become a part of Elon Law’s innovative LMC program,” Ochs said. “The importance of legal written and oral communication cannot be overstated, and I am excited to share my legal experiences in both the private and public sectors to assist students in developing practical analysis, research, and writing skills to excel in their future legal careers.”
About Elon Law’s LMC Fellowship Program
Elon Law LMC Fellows are highly qualified individuals who aspire to a career in legal education. The law school’s LMC program is a critical component of Elon Law’s curriculum, providing students with rigorous training in reading and analyzing legal authority, writing objective and persuasive memoranda and briefs, and developing oral skills. LMC Fellows join a collaborative team of legal writing faculty, teach approximately 25 students in the law school’s LMC program, and also teach in the Introduction to Legal Studies course for entering students each August. In their second year, Fellows may teach an additional course in another area of interest.
Fellows have gone on to accept positions as professors at law schools around the country.
About Elon Law:
Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, North Carolina, is the preeminent school for engaged and experiential learning in law. With a focus on “learning by doing,” it integrates traditional classroom instruction with course-connected, full-time residencies-in-practice in a logically sequenced program of transformational professional preparation. Elon Law’s groundbreaking approach is accomplished in 2.5 years, which provides distinctive value by lowering tuition and permitting graduates early entry into their legal careers.
For more information, visit law.elon.edu.