Benjamin E. Bratman

Ben Bratman graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1993, and was awarded the law school’s Stanley D. Rose Memorial Book Award for best writing in the field of legal history. He served for three years as law clerk to The Honorable Joel M. Feldman, United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. After the clerkship, he joined the Atlanta law firm of Pursley, Howell, Lowery & Meeks, where he practiced civil litigation, working primarily on the defense of employment discrimination actions in federal court and before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1999, Professor Bratman joined the faculty at the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School as a fellow. There, he taught Legal Research and Writing and a seminar on sexual harassment litigation. Professor Bratman joined the faculty at Pitt Law in July 2002.

Professor Bratman grew up in northern California and attended the University of Washington where he received his B.A. in history with college honors. Prior to law school, he served as a contributing writer for an in-flight airline magazine and a litigation clerk for Irell & Manella, a large Los Angeles based law firm.

Currently Teaching

• Legal Analysis and Writing (Fall 08 & Spring 09)
• Employment Discrimination (Fall 08)
• Analytical Writing (Spring 09)

Selected Publications

• Toward a Deeper Understanding of Professionalism: Learning to Write and Writing to Learn during the First Two Weeks of Law School, 32 J. Legal Prof. ___ (2008) (forthcoming)
• For-Credit Bar Exam Preparation: A Legal Writing Model, The Bar Examiner, Nov. 2007, at 26.
• Legal Knowledge: What’s Relevant, What’s Not? Why the Pennsylvania Bar Exam Should Focus on Federal Law, “Fundamental Legal Principles” and Legal Analysis—and Why It Should Stop Testing on Pennsylvania Law , The Pennsylvania Lawyer, March/April 2005, at 24.
• “Reality Legal Writing”: Using a Client Interview for Establishing the Facts in a Memo Assignment, 12 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 87 (2004).
• Why I Teach , The Law Teacher, Fall 2003, at 12.
• Brandeis & Warren’s The Right to Privacy and the Birth of the Right to Privacy , 69 Tenn. L. Rev. 623 (2002).