Persuasive Legal Writing: A Storytelling Approach, Second Edition

Olympia Duhart is Professor of Law and Director of the Legal Research and Writing ("LRW") Program at the Shepard Broad College of Law at Nova Southeastern University. Professor Duhart teaches LRW I, LRW II, Constitutional Law I, Constitutional Law II, and Women & the Law. She is an elected member of the Board of Governors for the Society of American Law Teachers. She serves on the Board of Advisors for the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, the Advisory Board for the LexisNexis Publications Advisory Board, and is a member of the Legal Writing Institute and the Association of Legal Writing Directors. She is a coach for the Moot Court Society. She was also appointed to serve on the Grievance Committee for the 17th Circuit “D” for the Florida Bar. In January 2014, Professor Duhart began her two-year term as co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). She serves with Professor Ruben Garcia of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Before joining the faculty at NSU, Professor Duhart was a founding member of the Critical Skills Program at Nova. Previously, she worked as an attorney in the litigation department at Ruden McClosky. She also spent several years doing pro bono work with the Florida Innocence Project. Prior to attending law school, Professor Duhart taught in the English department at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Professor Duhart also worked as a staff reporter for The Miami Herald, where she covered municipal government and schools.

Her articles have appeared in national print and in online magazines. She continues to contribute to blogs, including the NAACP Defenders Online, the SALTLAW blog, and The Huffington Post. Professor Duhart’s scholarship focuses on government accountability for historically marginalized groups of people. She has published extensively on Hurricane Katrina survivors. She has most recently written about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among veterans and members of the military. She also served as a member of the Editorial Board for Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Teaching: A Critical Reader. In addition, Professor Duhart has written in the areas of active learning, assessments, and teaching methods. She is the co-author (along with Thomas Baker, William Araiza, and Steve Friedland) of Skills and Values: Constitutional Law. Professor Duhart graduated magna cum laude from Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law, where she was a Goodwin Scholar. She earned her B.A. in English, cum laude, from the University of Miami. Professor Duhart has conducted presentations on teaching methods for law professors at conferences hosted by the Legal Writing Institute, the Southeastern Association of Law Schools, the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, and the National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, among others. In 2009 and 2012, Professor Duhart was recognized as NSU’s recipient for the Association of American Law Schools Award for Teaching. She was also named Professor of the Year by the NSU Student Bar Association in 2012. In 2014, Duhart won the Stephanie Aleong Impact Award, which recognizes a faculty member who has had an impact on a law student who exemplifies compassion, industry, and community service. In 2014, Professor Duhart was named to the Lawyers of Color's 50 Under 50 list, a comprehensive catalog of minority law professors making an impact in legal education.