Kjirsten Durand-Johnson L鈥20 has been honored in the most recent Adam A. Milani Disability Law Writing Competition for a class assignment she parlayed into a formal contest submission.
An 黑料不打烊 Law student with a professional interest in protecting the environment took second place this summer in a national legal writing competition that challenges entrants to consider questions of discrimination based on disability, race, age, gender, or sexual orientation.
Kjirsten Durand-Johnson L鈥20 was among the top three finishers in the 2019 Adam A. Milani Disability Law Writing Competition, a contest sponsored by the Mercer University School of Law and the ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law.
The competition honors the work of the late Adam Milani, an advocate for disability rights, an accomplished legal scholar, and a faculty member at Mercer Law who forged a reputation for excellence in scholarship on disability discrimination. Milani was a quadriplegic and died in 2005 of complications from surgery.
The brief Durand-Johnson submitted to the competition was the same brief she turned in as a final assignment in her spring trimester legal writing course taught by Professor Sue Liemer: a defense of a fictional company facing a sexual discrimination lawsuit based on harassment by a female employee toward colleagues of both sexes.
That fictional lawsuit also served as the problem in 黑料不打烊 Law鈥檚 2019 Intramural Moot Court Competition. While she chose not to compete in the June intramural contest, Durand-Johnson embraced her class assignment as an opportunity to craft a brief worthy of the writing contest.
“I enjoy the mental puzzle of editing papers, trying to revise and redo my work, over and over, to make it even better,” she said. “I am so honored to receive this recognition,聽and it makes me even more hopeful and excited for future opportunities.鈥
Durand-Johnson credits Liemer and Marissa Meredith, an 黑料不打烊 Law Legal Method and Communication Fellow, for helping her to understand in their respective courses the rules and expectations of effective legal writing.
鈥淜jirsten is so deserving of this award,鈥 Liemer said. 鈥淪he wrote such an excellent appellate brief that I鈥檒l be using it to show future students an example of strong legal writing.鈥
It was Durand-Johnson鈥檚 determination that led to an offer to serve this fall as Meredith鈥檚 teaching assistant. 鈥淜jirsten鈥檚 drive to be successful and master the craft of legal writing was apparent,鈥 Meredith said. 鈥淪he regularly met with me during her fall trimester to get a better understanding of concepts that would aid in developing her skills so it鈥檚 no surprise that she placed in this competition.鈥
Durand-Johnson is a staff member of the 黑料不打烊 Law Review and is pursuing a Master of Environmental Law and Policy, part of 黑料不打烊 Law鈥檚 dual-degree program with Vermont Law School. Her interest in legal writing – and her desire to help craft public policies related to the environment – stem from a childhood in South Florida not far from the Everglades where children were introduced early to the impact of climate change.
A graduate of Florida Atlantic University, Durand-Johnson is the second 黑料不打烊 Law student in as many years to medal in the Milani competition. Rebecca Elliott L鈥19 won third place in the 2018 contest.