Profile

Professor Heidi K. Brown is Associate Dean for Upper Level Writing at New York Law School. A prolific scholar and author on the art and science of legal writing, she has published four books on predictive and persuasive legal writing and federal litigation, as well as numerous scholarly articles for law journals. She has written three books about well-being and thriving in the legal profession: The Introverted Lawyer: A Seven-Step Journey Toward Authentically Empowered Advocacy,  Untangling Fear in Lawyering: A Four-Step Journey Toward Powerful Advocacy, and The Flourishing Lawyer: A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Performance and Well-Being.

Inspired by her own experience untangling fear of public speaking during her litigation career, she is passionate about helping law students and lawyers find their authentic lawyer voices and overcome anxiety about Socratic legal discourse and performance-based lawyering tasks. Brown is a frequent public speaker on the national and international stage on topics of well-being and healthy performance.

Prior to joining New York Law School, Brown served as Director of Legal Writing and Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School from 2016–2023. From 2011–2014, she taught in New York Law School’s Legal Practice program as Associate Professor of Law. She started her teaching career in 2008 at the Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law in Orange, California, where she served as Associate Professor of Legal Research and Writing.

Brown has more than two decades of experience in law practice. She worked as Of Counsel with Moore & Lee, LLP, a boutique litigation firm with offices in the Washington, D.C. area and New York City, where she handled all aspects of litigation and arbitration of complex construction contract and building development disputes. She specialized in brief writing for state and federal cases throughout the United States and mentored junior associates in civil procedure, litigation strategy, and legal writing. Before that, she was an associate at the Manhattan firm of Thacher, Proffitt & Wood and at the Washington, D.C. area firm of Watt, Tieder, Hoffar & Fitzgerald, LLP.

Brown studies Italian and has taught legal writing at the University of Trento in Trento, Italy and at Tuscia University in Viterbo, Italy. She received her bachelor’s degree in foreign affairs and French language/literature from the University of Virginia and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. In 2021, she received a Master in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) degree from the University of Pennsylvania.