Three DOJ Veterans Join Georgetown Law’s Storied Legal Practice Program

Associate Professor of Legal Practice Ben Eisman joined the Law Center’s full-time faculty over the summer, and two Visiting Professors of Legal Practice, Bethany Lipman, L’14, and Frances Walters are also in the classroom this semester. All three previously worked for the United States Department of Justice, and together, they bring wide-ranging expertise in litigation, public interest law, government service, literary writing and education.

“As with so many things at Georgetown Law, one of the things that makes our program particularly strong is its size,” says Chair of Legal Practice Professor Erin Carroll. “We have decades upon decades of cumulative teaching experience and a breadth of practice experience.”

The addition of these new professors enables the program to reduce its average legal writing class size to some 24 students. During the fall and spring semesters, 1Ls learn to research, draft and revise briefs and memos on a range of legal topics, from copyright infringement to unreasonable searches and seizures. They also work closely with upper-class student Law Fellows, who provide mentorship and personalized written feedback on assignments.

“We’re not just teaching students how to write,” Carroll says of the program’s holistic approach, which aims to help first-year students develop the foundational skills that will guide their work as legal professionals. “We’re teaching them the substance of how to think through legal problems and then communicate that thinking to different audiences.”

Transmitting ‘the ethos and the values’ of the law

Eisman, who previously served as an attorney advisor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, said he was looking forward to helping shape future defenders of the rule of law.

“In this moment when the rule of law feels imperiled in our country, the legal profession is an important bulwark,” he says. “This is an opportunity to help transmit not just the skills and mindset of lawyering, but the ethos and the values [of the profession]: candor, hard work, empathy for counterargument, having evidence to support your assertions and putting a lot of care into how we articulate rules and craft arguments.”

In addition to his work as a legal practitioner, Eisman is also an award-winning fiction writer who holds an M.F.A. from Johns Hopkins University and has published short stories in literary journals including Sewanee Review, New England Review and Commentary. Although mindful of the differences between the two fields, he looks forward to incorporating elements of workshop-style discussions, a common way for creative writing students to exchange feedback and ideas, in the legal classroom.

“Being a law student today is no easy thing. Becoming a lawyer has new weight and importance attached to it,” he says. “I’m excited by how smart and motivated these students are.”

Shaping practice-ready lawyers

Lipman, a former trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Criminal and Antitrust Divisions, looks forward to underscoring the importance of clear and effective communication with students — no matter their future practice area.

“Oral and written advocacy are so fundamental to your entire experience throughout law school and then in practice,” says Lipman, who began teaching legal writing as an adjunct professor in the Georgetown Law LL.M. program in 2021.

Being at her alma mater to help the next generation of J.D. students develop these vital skills is especially sweet for Lipman, she says. “I loved law school. I felt that my classmates, my professors — everybody, actually, was seeking to do the right thing for the right reasons. And my friends from Georgetown Law are still some of my best friends. It’s a special place,” she says.

The practical application of legal reasoning and writing skills is also top-of-mind for Walters, who most recently worked as an attorney advisor in the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney and previously taught a Law Center course on wrongful convictions as an adjunct professor.

“One of the big things we work on in the legal practice course is receiving feedback,” she says, noting that much of real-life lawyering includes learning how to effectively communicate with non-lawyers, such as clients and policymakers. “Being able to give a strong foundation that students can deviate from depending on who they’re working with is really important.”

Innovation and collaboration

While legal research and writing courses are a cornerstone of the first-year curriculum at law schools nationwide, faculty point to several features that distinguish Georgetown Law’s approach, including the program’s level of faculty and fellow oversight — 15 professors and 87 Law Fellows will support this year’s 1L class — and breadth of course offerings.

“The beauty of our program is that there is a core curriculum, but apart from those basic competencies, every member of the legal practice faculty has autonomy. That adds a richness, because we have so many students working on and talking about different problems,” says Professor of Law and Legal Practice Frances DeLaurentis, who previously chaired the Legal Practice program and since 2007 has directed Georgetown Law’s Writing Center, which provides additional writing support to students, faculty and staff.

The tendency towards innovation in course materials also extends to collaboration among the program’s faculty, who in recent years have worked together to address emergent issues such as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in legal writing, introduced new methods of evaluating student performance and coordinated curriculum materials with other foundational 1L courses such as civil procedure.

“Because of the size of our faculty, a sliver of us can beta-test an idea and then report back to the whole,” Carroll says. “This allows us to continually improve what is already a rigorous program built over many years.”