Press Releases

Cooley Professor Joseph Kimble Accepts the Prestigious Burton Award at the Library of Congress

June 4th, 2007 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - Joseph Kimble, Chair of the Thomas M. Cooley Cooley Law School's Research & Writing Department, accepts the prestigious Burton Award June 4 for his work as a drafting consultant for the newly rewritten Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Burton Awards program is run in association with the Library of Congress and the Law Library of Congress.

The newly written rules are the product of an intensive four-year effort by federal judges, practicing lawyers, law professors, and Professor Kimble. The new rules were approved by the U.S. Supreme Court and sent to Congress on April 30, and are scheduled to take effect on Dec. 1, 2007.

The civil rules - more than 300 pages as approved by the Supreme Court - were originally written in 1937 and have never been completely rewritten since then. The rules govern the procedure in all federal trial courts (U.S. District Courts); are relied on daily by countless judges and lawyers; serve as models for state courts; are studied by law students in a year-long course; and have produced many volumes of commentary.

The new rules will have great practical and symbolic importance. On the practical side, judges, lawyers and law students will find them much easier to learn and use: they are shorter, clearer, plainer, more internally consistent, and much better organized and formatted. At the same time, they will help put to rest the mistaken notion that laws laws and rules must be written in the archaic, inflated, verbose, and convconvoluted style that has come to be known as legalese.

About Joseph Kimble:

The chair of Cooley's Research & Writing department, Joseph Kimble is internationally recognized as a leader in the plain-language movement. He's given more than 100 presentations - worldwide - on plain language and legal writing. He is the editor in chief of The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, the editor of the "Plain Language" column in the Michigan Bar Journal, a founding director of the Center for Plain Language, and the past present of the international organization Clarity. He is the author of the acclaimed book Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language.

Founded in 1972, Cooley Law School is the largest law school in the nation. Cooley has three campuses across Michigan; its campus in downtown Lansing, its downtown Grand Rapids campus in West Michigan and its Rochester/Oakland University campus in southeast Michigan. In addition to the Juris Doctor program, students at Cooley can also pursue a Master of Laws degree in taxation or intellectual property. Find out more about Cooley Law School by visiting www.cooley.edu.