Rebecca Scharf Appointed New Terry Pollman Professor of Law
The William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV has appointed Professor Rebecca Scharf as the new Terry Pollman Professor of Law, succeeding Professor Lori Johnson.
The professorship was established to honor Terry Pollman, a founding faculty member of the Boyd School of Law and a prominent leader in the national legal writing community. A multi-year rotating appointment among Boyd’s legal writing faculty, the professorship recognizes the strength and dedication of the school's Lawyering Process program.
Terry Pollman served as President of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and held various leadership roles in the Legal Writing Institute (LWI). She was the recipient of many prestigious awards, including: the 2019 ALWD/LWI Thomas Blackwell Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of Legal Writing; the AALS Award for Outstanding Service to the Discipline from the Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research; the Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference Annual Award; and the UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award. She also served as a Managing Editor of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute and Co-founder of the West Coast Rhetoric Workshop. Before coming to the Boyd School of Law, Professor Pollman directed legal writing programs at the University of Illinois College of Law at Urbana-Champaign and Stetson University College of Law.
The newly appointed Professor Scharf is a regular presenter at major national conferences, including the Rocky Mountain Regional Legal Writing Conference and the Biennial Legal Writing Institute Conference. She served on the program committee for the 2026 Rocky Mountain Conference and has previously served on ALWD’s National Board of Directors and its Leadership Academy Steering Committee.
The Lawyering Process Program at the William S. Boyd School of Law consistently ranks among the top legal writing specialty programs in the country by U.S. News & World Report. As a national leader in the discipline, the Boyd legal writing faculty regularly hosts major conferences, including the upcoming Legal Writing Professors of Color Scholarship Workshop in December 2026 and the Rocky Mountain Regional Legal Writing Conference in March 2027.