Biography

Professor Robbins teaches courses across the lawyering curriculum and is a member of both the legal writing and clinic programs. She teaches 1L and upper level writing courses, directs and teaches in the Hunter Moot Court program, and supervises students in the Domestic Violence Clinic.

In addition to co-authoring--with a family court judge and a prosecutor--the New Jersey practice treatise on New Jersey domestic violence law, she also writes about persuasion and lawyering theory. One of her areas of inqury focuses on  story structure and elements as it relates to how lawyers represent clients. Another area of inquiry looks at the role of visual design in diligent lawyering. Her third area of expertise and study is in New Jersey domestic violence law and its practices and procedures.

As the Director of Lawyering Programs, she focuses on the law school's commitment to creating cohesion and collaboration among the different aspects of the skills courses and programs.

Nationally, Robbins is the recipient of national scholarship and teaching grants. She is currently the co-editor in chief of the peer-reviewed journal, Legal Communication & Rhetoric: JALWD, which publishes scholarly articles about legal writing and lawyering, written for a practitioner audience. She has been president of and was recently re-elected to the board of the Legal Writing Institute (LWI), an international organization with an active membership of 2,100. She is also one of the founders of the biennial international conference series "Applied Legal Storytelling," co-sponsored by the Legal Writing Institute and the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA). She has organized other national and regional conferences about legal writing. She also chaired the first committee on upper level writing for LWI.

Locally, she has received law school and campus-wide teaching awards.

In 2002, Professor Robbins founded the Domestic Violence Clinic at the law school and continues to teach in that clinic. She has been involved with the pro bono wing of the law school's domestic violence programs, the Domestic Violence Project, since 2000. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 1997, she practiced family law at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis and worked at the Haddonfield firm of Eisenberg, Gold & Cettei. She clerked for the New Jersey Appellate Division (Hon. Michael Patrick King).

Publications

Robbins, Johansen, Chestek, Persuasive Legal Writing: Constructing the Client's Narrative (Wolters Kluwer L. & Bus. 2013)(textbook).

Robbins, R.A., Harry Potter as Client in a Lawsuit, in The Law & Harry Potter 307(Jeffrey E. Thomas & Franklin G. Snyder, eds., Carolina Acad. Press 2010).

Robbins, R.A., Conserving the Canvas: Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Legal Briefs by Re-Imagining Court Rules and Legal Briefs, 7 J. ALWD 193 (2010).

DiCamillo, J.S.C., Robbins, Abatemarco, New Jersey Domestic Violence Practice and Procedure 3d ed., (N.J. Inst. of CLE 2009).

Robbins, R.A., An Introduction to Applied Storytelling, 14 J. Legal Writing 3 (2008).

Robbins, R.A., Harry Potter, Ruby Slippers and Merlin: Telling the Client's Story Using the Characters and Paradigm of the Archetypal Hero's Journey, 29 No. 4 Seattle L. Rev. 767 (2006)(lead article).

Robbins R.A., Painting with Print: Incorporating concepts of typographic and layout design into the text of legal writing documents 2 J. ALWD 108 (2004); reproduced on the website of the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

DiCamillo, Angelo, J.S.C., Robbins, R.A., Abatemarco, M.M., New Jersey Domestic Violence Practice and Procedure 2d ed., (N.J. Inst. of CLE 2005).

King, S. A. and Robbins R.A., Creating New Learning Experiences Through Collaborations Between Law Librarians and Legal Writing Faculty, 11 No. 3 Perspectives 110 (Spring 2003).

DiCamillo, Angelo, J.S.C., Robbins, R.A., Abatemarco, M.M., New Jersey Domestic Violence Practice and Procedure, (N.J. Inst. of CLE 2002).

Foley, B.J., Robbins, R.A., Fiction 101: A Primer for Lawyers On How To Use Fiction Writing Techniques To Write Persuasive Facts Sections, 32, No. 2, Rutgers L.J. 459 (Winter, 2001).
*Reprinted in 51 No. 1 Defense L.J. 149 (Spring 2002) and as How To Use Fiction Writing Techniques to Write Persuasive Facts Sections, Natl. Inst. Trial Advoc. LexisONE Articles, http://www.nita.org/lexisarticles.htm#NEWJULY 

Various shorter pieces appear in multiple issues of The Second Draft, available at http://www.lwionline.org and include President's Columns (between 2008-10) and The Next Step #1 Starting a Dialogue About Upper Level Writing (beginning of a regular column). 

Also a past contributor to AALS Newsletters of the Legal Writing, Reasoning & Research and the Clinical Education Sections.