Access Restricted to Northwestern Law CommunitySusan Ehrmann Provenzano
Phone: (312) 503-0523
E-mail: s-provenzano@law.northwestern.edu
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Professor Provenzano directs and teaches in Northwestern Law’s Communication and Legal Reasoning Program, and chairs the Law School’s Communications Task Force. She serves on the Board of Editors of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, and is a frequent presenter at national and regional legal writing conferences. Her current research interests center on the intersection of composition theory, learning theory, and the teaching of legal analysis. Professor Provenzano has also served the Law School as Interim Dean of Students and the chair of the faculty judicial clerkship committee.
Before joining Northwestern Law’s faculty in 2001, Professor Provenzano practiced employment, labor and commercial litigation at the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis, Mayer, Brown & Platt, and Franczek Sullivan P.C. As a practicing attorney, she handled a wide range of litigation matters and drafted petitions for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court and other appellate briefs. Among her written work is a Supreme Court amicus brief that culminated in one of the Court’s landmark ADA decisions on the meaning of "disability."
Professor Provenzano received her law degree with honors from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Wisconsin Law Review. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Ruben Castillo, U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Illinois.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
- Legal Research
- Labor and Employment Law
- Legal Writing
PUBLICATIONS
Representative Publications
- Younger Workers May Be a New Protected Class, National Law Journal, 1999 (with Gary D. Friedman)
Recent Publications
- Teaching in Reverse: A Positive Approach to Analytical Errors in 1L Legal Writing , 39 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 123-185, 2007
- E-Grading: The Pros and Cons of Paperless Legal Writing Papers, 12 PERSPECTIVES: TEACHING LEGAL RESEARCH AND WRITING 139-146, 2004
EDUCATION
- BA, University of Wisconsin
- JD, University of Wisconsin
PRIOR APPOINTMENTS
- Law Clerk to the Honorable Ruben Castillo, Northern District of Illinois
- Attorney, Kirkland & Ellis
- Attorney, Mayer Brown
- Attorney, Franczek Radelet & Rose
