Ben Bratman teaches Legal Analysis & Writing and Legislation & Regulation, both required first-year courses, as well as Employment Discrimination. Bratman has published several articles and spoken at various conferences about his teaching methods and course exercises, and many of his exercises from Legal Analysis & Writing are in use throughout the country, having been adopted by professors at other law schools. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Bratman serves as faculty advisor to the Moot Court Board, co-coach of Pitt Law’s team in the National Moot Court Competition, and coordinator of the school’s bar exam success initiatives.

Upon his arrival at Pitt Law in 2002, Bratman developed and led a bar exam preparation initiative designed to increase the school’s bar passage rate. Three years later, he was among the first in the country to create and teach a for-credit bar exam preparation course as part of a law school curriculum. In all but one year of his tenure, the pass rate for Pitt Law graduates on the Pennsylvania Bar Exam has exceeded the statewide pass rate. Bratman currently serves as a resource for students on matters related to bar admissions and bar exams, and also coordinates Pitt Law’s summer bar preparation program, PassTheBar.

After graduating cum laude from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1993, Bratman served 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, and practiced law with the firm of Pursley, Howell, Lowery & Meeks in Atlanta. Professor Bratman began his teaching career in 1999 at the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School. He joined the faculty at Pitt Law in 2002. In 2011 – 2012 he served as Visiting Professor of Lawyering Skills at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.

Education

• Analytical Writing

Specialization

• Legal Writing
• Bar Examinations
• Employment Law and Employment Discrimination
• Legislation and Regulation

Selected Publications

• Legal Research and Writing as a Proxy: Using Traditional Assignments to Achieve a More Fundamental Form of Practice Readiness, The Second Draft 7 (Spring 2011).
• Rand Paul and the Business of Discrimination, Jurist (May 28, 2010).
• A Defense of Sotomayor's "Wise Latina" Remark - with No Rewording Required, FindLaw (July 19, 2009).
• 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. 115 (2008).
• For-Credit Bar Exam Preparation: A Legal Writing Model, The Bar Examiner 26 (Nov. 2007). Also available on SSRN.
• 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 24 (March/April 2005).
• “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 12 (Fall 2003).
• Brandeis & Warren’s The Right to Privacy and the Birth of the Right to Privacy, 69 Tenn. L. Rev. 623 (2002).

Presentations

• "Typographical Errors and the Law: From the Amusing to the Consequential," Rocky Mountain Legal Writing Conference, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State Univ., (Mar. 2012). 

SSRN Author Page

Selected Professional Activities

• American Inns of Court (W. Edward Sell Chapter).
• Guest Lecturer on Bar Exam Preparation, Indiana Council on Legal Education Opportunity, Indianapolis, IN, (July 2012).
• Visiting Professor of Lawyering Skills, Univ. of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, Sacramento, CA, (2011 – 2012).
• Lecturer, Kaplan/PMBR’s Pennsylvania General Bar Review Course (2009-2012).