A first-year law student recently told me, “You’ve got to learn the rules in order to break them.” The comment struck me as a smart distillation of what legal writing is all about, and why we teach it the way we do. More than that, it offers a helpful framework students can return to as they move through the course, wrestle with the challenges of legal writing, and begin to develop their own voice as future lawyers.

Former Justice William J. Brennan believed “oral argument is the absolutely indispensable ingredient of appellate advocacy. . . . [O]ften my whole notion of what a case is about crystallizes at oral argument. This happens even though I read the briefs before oral argument . . . .

Have you ever wished that you could more deeply assess the efficacy of a new teaching exercise you developed, an innovative pedagogical method that you tried, or a novel course you taught? Too often, standardized course evaluations do not capture the data necessary to determine the success (or failure) of a pedagogical experiment.

With the anticipated launch of the NextGen bar exam next year, transactional lawyering skills are enjoying increased attention in first-year law school curricular development. At the same time, recent amendments to ABA Rule 303 have made it essential for new law students to learn about the profession’s core values and responsibilities. While these evolving priorities open the door to pedagogical innovation, incorporating two distinct topics into an already packed curriculum can be challenging.

A legal drafter’s constant challenge is choosing language that captures the parties’ or legislative body’s intended meaning without being over precise or too vague. The drafter must shape language, striving for that elusive “perfect” word or phrase that will allow the contract or law to remain effective and reasonably flexible into the future. This technique takes practice. 

As a legal skills professor who works primarily with first-year law students, I often engage in academic and career planning discussions. In this context, I developed a method designed to help students strategically shape their JD careers. This approach encourages students to think intentionally about their goals and identify opportunities for career exploration throughout their time in law school. This method also allows students to discern key characteristics of legal careers that ultimately will bring them the most job satisfaction in the future.

“I like good strong words that mean something.” Little Women[1]

  “2Ls tell me this class will end up pretty heavy, but I feel good so far. So, when is the other shoe going to drop?”

1. Introduction

The American Bar Association (ABA) adopted Standard 303(c) in February 2022, mandating that law schools provide education on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism at the start of the legal-education program and at least once more before graduation.[1] Standard 303(c) presents a prime opportunity for law schools to rethink and innovate their curricula by incorporating upper-level writing electives that

My jaw dropped.  She nailed it.  She explained to our class not just where—but how—this 1L’s memo could be more synthesized, more precise, and more logical.  I could not have done it better. 

But remarkably, she was herself only a 1L.  In fact, she was the 1L who authored the memorandum only a week earlier.  And even more remarkably, several of her colleagues did the same thing with their own work in that same session, only a few weeks into the semester.