Diana R. Donahoe
Professor and Chair of Legal Research & Writing, Georgetown Law Center
B.A., Williams; J.D., LL.M., Georgetown

Diana R. Donahoe, Professor of Legal Research & Writing at Georgetown University Law Center, is the architect of TeachingLaw.com. Her inspiration for the platform began in 2000, when she wrote an article, Teachinglaw.com; Bridging the Digital Divide Between Professor and Student, 5 Va. J. L. & Tech. 12 (2000). The article creatively compared the teaching and learning preferences of law professors and their digital students. As part of her conclusions, Professor Donahoe recommended that professors create innovative platforms to meet the students on their side of the laptops. For the next six years, Professor Donahoe created the initial beta version of TeachingLaw.com and tested multiple editions with her first-year law students. After receiving their input and making substantial improvements, Professor Donahoe combined forces with Aspen Publishers to create the current, updated TeachingLaw.com platform. Since that time, TeachingLaw.com has become a national and international platform for innovatively engaging students in law school teaching.

Diana R. Donahoe has become an expert in the pedagogical methods of using interactive, digital content to meet the needs of the current generation of law school students. Her experiences, articles, and expertise have made her invaluable in helping other professors learn to adapt their pedagogical methods to teach digital students. As a result, she travels the country providing presentations and roundtable discussions on the pedagogy of the TeachingLaw.com platform. A TeachingLaw.com author herself, she also assists other TeachingLaw authors design the content and functionality of their books to fit within the three-dimensional, interactive platform. Her editing includes designing existing content to match the pedagogical methods of the product. Diana R. Donahoe earned her B.A. from Williams College and her J.D. and L.L.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. After graduating magna cum laude from law school, Diana served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After her clerkship, she was a Prettyman Fellow in the Georgetown Criminal Justice Clinic, where she represented criminal defendants and supervised law students in court.

Professor Donahoe is currently a Professor of Legal Research and Writing and the former Director and Chair of Legal Research & Writing at Georgetown University Law Center, where she has been teaching since 1993. Her courses have included Legal Research and Writing, Advanced Legal Writing in Practice, Applied Legal Composition, Legal Discourse, and Legal Practice. In 2008, Diana was awarded the Georgetown Frank Flegal Award for Excellence in Teaching (Teacher of the Year), in part as a result of her innovative pedagogical methods with digital students.

Selected Publications:

Diana R. Donahoe, Skilled E-Scholars Click Their Way Up, Legal Times, (September 4, 2007).

Diana R. Donahoe, Researching Beyond the Books, 6 Spectrum 1 (Sept. 2001)

Diana R. Donahoe, Teachinglaw.com; Bridging the Digital Divide Between Professor and Student, 5 Va. J. L. & Tech. 12 (2000) (also located at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/donahoe)

Diana R. Donahoe, Analyzing the Writer’s Analysis: Will It Be Clear to the Reader?, N.Y. St. B.A. Vo. 72, No. 3, at 46 (March-April 2000); also published in: Carol M. Bast & Margie A. Hawkins, Foundations of Legal Research & Writing (West Legal Studies 2001)

Diana R. Donahoe, Could Have, Would Have, What the Supreme Court Should Have Done in Whren v. United States, 34 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1193 (1997)

Diana R. Donahoe, et al., Fair Cross Section Challenges in Maryland: An Analysis and Proposal, 25 U. Balt. L. Rev. 127 (1996)

Selected Presentations:

July 17, 2009
“Attention All Innovators: Engaging Students in the Classroom with Interactive Technology”
Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD)
Kansas City, KS

June 20, 2009
“Creating Three-dimensional, Multi-Media LRW Projects to Engage the Digital Student,”
The New Teachers Conference
Washington, D.C.

June 20, 2008
“TeachingLaw.com: Teaching to the Digital Audience with an Interactive, Online, Digital Platform”
The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI)
2008 Conference for Law School Computing
Baltimore, MD

October 18 – 20, 2007
“Effective Instruction in Legal Research”
Teaching the Teachers Conference
The University of Texas at Austin School of Law

January 3-6, 2007
“Engaging Students in the Digital Age” (poster session)
Association of American Law Schools (AALS)
2007 Annual Meeting
Washington, D.C.

June 7-10, 2006
“TeachingLaw.com: Using an Interactive, Electronic Legal Research & Writing Casebook; The Future is Already Happening!”
12th Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI)
Atlanta, GA