Ann Nowak to Receive Award From the Legal Writing Institute

Dean Harry Ballan is delighted to report that Ann Nowak, Director of Touro Law’s Writing Center, has been selected to receive the Deborah Hecht Memorial Writing Award from the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) for her article “Discovering a Predictor of Reading Comprehension Difficulties.” The article arose from her research funded by Touro College and University System’s Presidential Research Development Grant that she was awarded in 2017 for her project entitled, “Oral Reading Disfluency as an Indicator of Reading Comprehension Difficulties among Students in Higher Education.”

Dean Ballan stated, “Professor Nowak’s innovative scholarship deals with fundamental issues in higher education in a thorough, provocative way. It is rigorous, thoughtful and important. We are proud of her accomplishments and look forward to her further achievements. The award has special meaning to us because Deborah Hecht was a member of the Touro community as well.”

Since becoming Director of the Legal Writing Center at Touro Law Center, Ann Nowak has published many articles on writing clearly, comparative legal scholarship, and teaching writing. She is also a frequent presenter at conferences throughout the United States and abroad. Professor Nowak has served twice as a Pro Bono Legal Specialist in the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative, once in Istanbul and once in Kuwait, where she trained local attorneys in Law Practice Management. She also has taught Law Practice Management at Touro Law Center and at Bahçesehir University in Istanbul.  

Before joining Touro, Professor Nowak founded and ran an eastern Long Island law firm for 19 years.  She previously worked as a reporter and feature writer at Newsday and the Southampton Press, and as a copy editor and feature writer at Moneysworth. Professor Nowak has taught legal writing at CUNY School of Law, persuasive writing online at the University of Phoenix, and creative writing at the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. She served on the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals for 18 years. Professor Nowak is admitted to the bars of New York, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Professor Nowak serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Performing Arts Center of Suffolk County and was one of the founding directors of the Jacobson Center for the Performing Arts, where she danced, acted, and sang under the stage name KK Malone. 

The Deborah Hecht Memorial Writing Award is presented by the Legal Writing Institute in honor of Deborah Hecht, who served as the Director of the Legal Writing Center at Touro University School of Law for eight years. During that time, she worked to develop Touro’s Legal Resources Center, including developing a website. She was also active in the LWI and in its smaller legal writing specialists group, writing articles for The Second Draft’s “From the Desk of the Writing Specialist” column. Deborah passed away on November 4, 2005, and she is greatly missed by all in the legal writing community, particularly the members of the Association of Legal Writing Specialists. To honor her memory and her contributions to the legal writing profession, the legal writing specialists received approval from the LWI Board of Directors to create the Deborah Hecht Memorial Writing Award. The award is given to the writing specialist who writes the best article for The Second Draft during a two-year period. The award is presented during the LWI Biennial Conference. Previous winners include: Natalie Tarenko, Writing Specialist at Texas Tech University School of Law; Jeremy Francis, Associate Professor at the Michigan State University College of Law; Lurene Contento, Assistant Professor and Director of the Writing Resource Center at the John Marshall Law School; and Stephanie Juliano, Assistant Director of the Legal Writing Center at Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.

The Legal Writing Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving legal communication by supporting the development of teaching and scholarly resources and establishing forums to discuss the study, teaching, and practice of professional legal writing. With nearly 3,000 members, LWI is the second largest organization of law professors in the United States, but members also include lawyers and judges, researchers, consultants, and undergraduate professors.

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Patti Desrochers

Director of Communications

pattid@tourolaw.edu

(631) 761-7062