Professor Joan Rocklin got her undergraduate degree from Williams College and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of law, serving as an editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and graduating Order of the Coif. Joan clerked for Senior Judge William Schwarzer, working on cases from the Third Circuit, the Ninth Circuit, and the Northern District of California. Afterward, she returned to her home state of New York, working in the litigation department of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

She is also the co-author of two best-selling textbooks: An Advocate Persuades and A Lawyer Writes. The textbooks introduce college students to the fundamental analytical and writing skills that the students will need when they begin practicing law. Law students have been known to become unusually attached to the textbooks, bringing them not only to their legal writing classrooms, but also to their summer jobs, to their clinics and externships, and to their first full-time jobs as lawyers.