David R. Cleveland

David Cleveland is a classically trained educator who has taught at the high school, college, and law school levels. He is also an experienced litigator and accomplished scholar, specializing in legal writing, legal ethics, and federal court reform issues. He has been teaching legal research, writing, and analysis in law schools since 2005. Over the years, his teaching has included in-person, online, and hybrid instruction. He has taught a variety of J.D. courses including first-year legal writing, upper-level appellate advocacy, legal ethics, administrative law research, and gaming law seminars. He has also taught masters of law courses on federalism issues and business organizations.

Professor Cleveland is a nationally recognized expert in federal court structure and reform and a leader in the legal writing community. His widely cited scholarship includes works on federal court reform, legal writing pedagogy and history, and discrimination law. He has served in a variety of leadership roles in the legal writing community, including as a member of the board of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. He has a history of service and leadership in the law school setting having previously served as Dean, Associate Dean, and Legal Writing Director. In 2017, he was awarded the Jack A. Hiller Distinguished Faculty Award for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service and in 2020 he was selected for the Legal Writing Institute’s rarely-given Terri LeClercq Courage Award.

Professor Cleveland is first and foremost an energetic and innovative teacher. He is also a devoted advisor to students, often serving as a co-curricular or academic advisor and as a supervising professor for independent scholarly research. Professor Cleveland holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from the College of Education at Western Michigan University.