About Joseph Kimble

Joseph Kimble taught legal writing for 30 years at Western Michigan University–Cooley Law School. He has published extensively and given more than 175 seminars and presentations throughout the United States and abroad. He is senior editor (and former editor in chief) of The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, the longtime editor of the “Plain Language” column in the Michigan Bar Journal, a founding director of the Center for Plain Language, the past president of the international organization Clarity, and the drafting consultant on all federal court rules. He led the work of redrafting the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence.

Awards

Professor Kimble won two prestigious Burton Awards for Reform in Law for his work on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Federal Rules of Evidence; a Lifetime Achievement Award from his fellow law-school writing teachers; and the John W. Reed Lawyer Legacy Award from the State Bar of Michigan. Recently, Western Michigan–Cooley Law School created the Kimble Center for Legal Drafting in his honor. He is the senior director.