Wednesday, February 25, 2026
A young woman with wavy, light brown hair stands next to a TV in the Law Writing Center. She is presenting to a group of students who are seated at a table. On the TV, there's white text against a black background. The text says, "Be comfortable with repetition. Be skeptical of redundancy."
2025 Beat the Heat Event at the Law Writing Center

Located on the fourth floor of the Boyd Law Building, the Iowa Writing Law Center provides individualized tutoring for law students at the University of Iowa. 

“Our mission is to provide judgement free, kind, and supportive constructive feedback for students that are developing their writing skills,” said Prof. Dawn Anderson, a professor of legal analysis, writing, and research, and the director of the center. “Our goal is to improve students as writers, not necessarily just to improve that writing project they’re working on.”

Founded in 1989, the writing center was among the first of its kind to be part of a law school and currently offers drop-in visits and scheduled appointments. The center’s tutors are 2L and 3L students, those in their second or third year, who are enrolled in the class Advanced Legal Writing – Writing Center. They provide general peer mentoring and support in writing anything from seminar papers to appellate advocacy briefs. This year, they have also added a new legal writing chatbot to its ICON page that students can consult if a writing tutor isn’t available.

Lydia Berry, a 3L Roth Fellow and writing tutor at the center, said, “One of the things that our group of writing tutors really appreciate is being part of a team…quite a few of the tutors last year had either lived internationally or were from different countries. It’s really exciting to learn about their backgrounds.”

The center also holds a variety of events throughout the semester, such as presentations on different writing techniques and programming focused on community building.  

“We had a soup potluck last year.” The tutors also often hold events the night before big projects are due where students can come work on their writing together. 

Dawn Barker Anderson
Prof. Dawn Anderson

Over the past five years, the center’s usage has gone up by eighty-three percent. “Last year we had 690 tutoring appointments,” said Prof. Anderson. For a law school with around 450 students, that means the average number of visits is about two times per student per semester. 

Prof. Anderson is focused on continuing the upward trend. “How do we think about the barriers that students have to come to the writing center, and how can we help break those barriers down?”  

To schedule an appointment with the Iowa Law Writing Center, law students should visit the center’s ICON site or email law-writingcenter@uiowa.edu with questions.  

Want to learn more about Iowa’s law school and/or the center? Visit their website at https://law.uiowa.edu