About Michelle S.
Michelle S. Falkoff trained first as a reader and writer before she became a lawyer. She earned a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, took a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1998, and later completed an MFA in Fiction Writing at the University of Iowa in 2004. Her education spans literature, law and creative writing, and that combination appears throughout her career.
After law school she joined Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP as an associate in 1998. She spent her early professional years in private practice, entering the bar in California the same year. Those years in firm practice gave her firsthand experience of how legal writing and argument work under pressure.
She shifted toward writing and teaching in the mid-2000s. Beginning in 2004 she worked as a freelance writer and editor, taking assignments that ranged from legal prose to creative projects. In 2006 she returned to academia as a professor of legal analysis, writing, and research at the University of Iowa College of Law. In the classroom she combined techniques from fiction and composition with doctrinal training. Students and colleagues have noted the practical bent of her courses and her attention to clarity and structure in legal documents.
In 2013 she moved to Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law to take on the role of Director of Communication and Legal Reasoning. There she has overseen programs that teach legal writing, oral advocacy and analytical reasoning. Her work at Northwestern has involved curricular development, faculty collaboration and mentoring students as they prepare for practice. She has remained active in writing and editing outside the law school, continuing projects from her freelance years.
Falkoff maintains professional ties to both the legal and literary communities. She has been a member of the California State Bar since 1998 and serves on the board of Sisters in Crime Chicagoland, a role she began in 2021. Those memberships reflect an interest in the intersection of narrative craft and professional communication. She currently serves as Director of Communication and Legal Reasoning at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where she focuses on teaching and program leadership in legal communication.
