Biography

Assistant Professor of Lawyering Skills and Director of Legal Writing Program

J.D., Howard University School of Law
B.A., University of the West Indies (Mona)

Biography

Sha-Shana N.L. Crichton, Assistant Professor of Lawyering Skills, was recently elected to the board of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD).  She is a member of ALWD’s Leadership and Development Committee and has served as chair and currently co-chair of the Legal Writing Institute’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Professor Crichton is the recipient of the Global Legal Skills Conference Award for her “commitment to the promotion of global legal skills education and for advancing diversity and inclusion in legal education around the world” (Melbourne Law School, Australia 2018) and Howard University School of Law’s Warren S. Rosmarin Award for Excellence in Teaching and Service (2017).  She was named African Leadership Magazine's 100 Outstanding Leaders for 2015.  

She has contributed articles to the Howard Law Journal and other scholarly publications. Her article, “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied: Jamaica’s Duty to Deliver Timely Reserved Judgments and Written Reasons for Judgment,” published in the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, was ranked #8 in SSRN's top ten most downloaded papers in June 2017 under the topic AARN: Latin America and South America, and was cited by the Court of Appeal of Jamaica in Cheng-Young v.  Eagle Merchant Bank Jamaica Ltd.[2018] JMCA App 7 [page 39 footnote 71].

Professor Crichton has taught at Howard for over ten years.  She teaches legal writing and directs Howard Law’s Legal Writing program. She started and oversees Howard Law’s Writing Center.  Professor Crichton also serves as associate director of the Master of Laws program.

Prior to joining Howard’s faculty, she practiced commercial litigation at Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells, now Clifford Chance. She is a regular contributor and speaker at national and international conferences and symposia. She is a proud graduate of the University of the West Indies (Mona), has served as president of the UWI Alumni Association Washington-DC Metro Area chapter for several years, and is a member of the UWI Chancellor’s Presidents Club. 

Publications 

Article
Incorporating Social Justice into the 1L Legal Writing Course: A Tool for Empowering Students of Color and of a Historically Marginalized Group and Improving Learning,24 Michigan Journal of Race and Law251 (2019).

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Jamaica’s Duty to Deliver Timely Reserved Judgments and Written Reasons for Judgment, 44 Syracuse J. Int’l L. & Com. 1 (2016) cited by the Court of Appeal of Jamaica in Cheng-Young v.  Eagle Merchant Bank Jamaica Ltd. [2018] JMCA App 7 [page 39 in footnote 71] and ranked #8 in SSRN's top ten most downloaded papers in June 2017 under the topic AARN: Latin America and South America; quoted in a speech by the Hon. Mr. Justice Denys Barrow, Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice, Judgment Delayed is Justice Denied, Caribbean Court of Justice(Oct. 2017) https://www.ccj.org/ccj-matters-october-2017/; quoted in Swikani Ncube, Where is Full Judgment on 2018 Electoral Case?, Zimbabwe Independent(Sept. 20, 2019), https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2019/09/20/where-is-full-judgment-on-2018-electoral-case/

The Incomplete Revolution:  Women Journalists - 50 Years After Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, We’ve Come A Long Way Baby, But Are We There Yet, 58 How. L.J.49 (2014).

Distinguishing Between Direct and Consequential Damages Under New York law in Breach of Service Contract Cases, 45 How. L.J.597 (2002).

Book Chapters

Incorporating Race into the First-Year Legal Writing Course in The Oxford Handbook of Race and Law in the United States(Devon Carbado, Khiara Bridges, & EmilyM.S. Houh eds. forthcoming Oxford University Press 2020).

Using Fiction to Teach Word Choice and To Teach How to Write an Effective Fact Statement in Teaching Law and Popular Culture (Christine Corcos ed. 2019 (Carolina Academic Press).

Essay

What Happens when the Media Gets Ahead of your Client’s Story? An Attorney’s Duty to use Conscious Word Choice, 47 S.U.L. Rev. 155 (2019).

Book Review

Book Review Crusader for Justice: Federal Judge Damon J. Keith Written and Edited by Peter J. Hammer and Trevor W. Coleman forthcoming, LC&R: JALWD Vol. 16, (2019).

Other 

Teaching Collaboration, 31 SECOND DRAFT 38 (2018) [SSRN Top Ten Download List August and September 2018].