Associate Professor of Legal Methods
B.A. Grove City College
J.D., Dickinson School of Law
E-mail:
alsmith9276@mail.widener.edu Phone: 717.541.3946
Amanda L. Smith is a Legal Methods Professor at the Harrisburg campus. Professor Smith earned a B.A. in English from Grove City College and a J.D., magna cum laude, from the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law. She was a member of the National Appellate Moot Court Team and served as a Case Note Editor for the Dickinson Law Review.
While in law school, Professor Smith worked for the Honorable J. Andrew Smyser of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Following graduation from law school, Professor Smith served as a law clerk to the Honorable Sandra Schultz Newman of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Before joining Widener’s faculty, Professor Smith served as a Deputy Attorney General in the Civil Litigation division of the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. With the Attorney General’s Office, Professor Smith litigated civil actions from the initial pleading stage, to jury trials, and through appeal. She specialized in civil rights and employment discrimination law.
Professor Smith has a passion for teaching. She has shared teaching and assessment ideas at several national conferences. Along with her legal writing colleagues from Widener, she has presented twice at the Legal Writing Institute’s Biennial Conferences on the topics of using hand-held response devices in the legal writing classroom and on assessing collaborative work. In 2011, along with Professors Anthon and Hemingway, she spoke on incorporating assessment opportunities through collaborative work at the Summer Conference of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning. Presently, she is pursuing her Masters in Education from Widener University.
Professor Smith developed and teaches a Legal Methods III course on judicial opinion writing. The Legal Writing Institute awarded her a 2010 scholarship grant to continue her research into the pedagogical advantages to teaching judicial opinion writing in law school.
Selected Recent Publications Articles