Tom is an experienced attorney, educator, and writer. Before founding Thomas Holm Legal Consulting LLC, Tom served for nearly two decades as director and instructor for the Lawyering Skills Clinical Program at UCLA School of Law. He has fifteen years’ experience teaching advanced writing techniques at top law firms, public interest legal organizations, and in MCLE programs. He also provides individual coaching and critiquing services for attorneys seeking to improve their written advocacy, including working with firms, corporations, and other employers who want to give their attorneys additional writing support.
Tom attended the University of Minnesota School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude and was selected for Order of the Coif. He served as Notes and Comments editor for the University of Minnesota Law Review and received the ABA’s Edward J. Devitt Scholarship for excellence in trial advocacy. He clerked for the Honorable Arthur L. Alarcon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After his clerkship, Tom practiced at the firm of Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm.
Tom then worked for nineteen years as director and instructor for the Lawyering Skills Clinical Program at UCLA School of Law. As director, Tom developed and significantly revised the Program’s curriculum, created teaching materials, and trained faculty regarding effective teaching and critiquing methods. In Lawyering Skills, Tom taught first-year law students practice-oriented legal analysis, legal writing, legal research, and other clinical skills. He also taught the Writing Advisor Seminar, an advanced legal writing and editing course associated with the Lawyering Skills Clinical Program. And he co-created and taught an academic success class titled “Introduction to Legal Analysis,” a legal methods course for incoming 1L students that provided an immersive experience in the process of legal argument.
Tom received the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest teaching honor for professors at UCLA School of Law. After receiving his Rutter Award, Tom authored A Journey of Faith, Love, and Teaching, a modified and expanded essay version of his Rutter Award speech that was published by the UCLA Law Review Discourse. Tom also received UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award, a university-wide honor.
Tom co-authored Cracking the Case Method: Legal Analysis for Law School Success, a respected guide for academic success in law school. Cracking the Case Method helps students navigate often opaque law school pedagogy to develop the analytical skills and learning strategies necessary to excel on law school exams. Cracking the Case Method is assigned reading in two top tier law schools and recommended reading in several other highly-rated law schools.
Tom serves as a volunteer attorney for the L.A. County Bar Association’s Domestic Violence Project, helping victims of domestic violence and elder abuse obtain restraining orders against their abusers. And he offers his writing programs pro bono to public interest legal organizations. He also volunteers at his alma mater, Carleton College, teaching and mentoring students in Carleton’s pre-law program.
My mission
I help make attorneys better writers. My legal writing programs teach concrete strategies and techniques pertinent to all aspects of written advocacy. My programs include excellent teaching materials, writing samples, and handouts that attendees can rely on in their future work. And my teaching methods ensure that attendees will not only value and enjoy my programs, but will apply and retain what they have learned.
I also offer individual writing instruction to attorneys who wish to improve their written advocacy, including attorneys whose employers wish to provide extra writing support. As part of my instruction, I critique attorneys’ actual memoranda to provide self-editing tools that allow them to approach their future work more effectively.
Join the attorneys whose writing has been enhanced by my instruction. Contact me to get started!
