Rate My Professor Kathryn Boling

Kathryn Boling is an Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Legal Writing Program in the Law faculty at Seattle University School of Law. She holds a B.A. in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Stanford University, earned in 2002 with a focus on globalization and law, and a J.D. summa cum laude from Seattle University School of Law in 2007. After law school, Boling clerked for Judge David Armstrong on the Washington Court of Appeals from 2007 to 2009. She was then selected through the Department of Justice Honors Program to serve as a Trial Attorney in the Civil Division in Washington, D.C., until 2013, litigating complex tort cases stemming from environmental contamination across the United States. In 2013, she returned to Seattle and practiced for nearly six years at a private civil defense firm, specializing in insurance coverage and bad faith litigation. Boling entered legal academia in 2019 as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Lawyering Skills at Seattle University School of Law, became Associate Director of the Legal Writing Program in 2022, and advanced to her current tenure-track position as Director and Assistant Professor in 2024.

In these roles, Boling directs a team of faculty teaching the first-year Legal Writing, Skills, and Values course—which covers predictive legal writing, research, client interviewing, counseling, negotiation, fact development, professionalism, reflection, and cultural competence—and the second-year Written and Oral Advocacy course. Her research centers on quotation practices in legal writing and pedagogy, exemplified by her forthcoming article, “What is ‘the Rule’? Quotation Marks and the Role of Courts and Lawyers as Performers of the Common Law,” in the Duquesne Law Review (volume 64, issue 2, spring 2026). She has presented at numerous conferences, including the Legal Writing Institute Biennial, Association of Legal Writing Directors Biennial, Western Regional Legal Writing Conference, and AALS Annual Meeting, on topics such as reflection in teaching, inclusive classrooms, and race in legal writing assignments. Boling has been nominated for the Outstanding Faculty Award by graduating students in 2022, 2023, and 2025, and received the Black Law Students Association Amicus Award in 2022. She serves on the Faculty Appointments Committee, Curriculum Committee, advises the Seattle University Law Review and American Indian Law Journal, and delivers CLE presentations on legal writing and generative AI.