Each year growing up, my family did the same thing for Thanksgiving. We’d invite a group of families over to our house, everyone would bring the same set of dishes (candied sweet potatoes!), we’d have a Kids Table and a Grown-Ups Table (Kids Table was always more fun), and then, after dinner, we’d play games. 

This article offers a potential tool for legal writing professors seeking to quickly orient students to the positive power—and potential peril—of using generative artificial intelligence tools wisely in the practice of law. This article describes a verified, helpful classroom exercise designed to engage students in the critical evaluation of memos or briefs generated by various AI systems. Through this exercise, students quickly grasp pitfalls of the tools, while they also start to understand that different AI products suit different purposes.

I transitioned into teaching Legal Writing in 2023.  Early in my first semester, I discussed the now well-known case of Mata v. Avianca, Inc. wherein counsel was sanctioned for filing a pleading created by ChatGPT and which contained citations to non-existent cases.[1]  The case provided a good example of the importance of accurate legal citations.

Fewer phrases strike more anxiety into the hearts of many law students as oral argument.[1] And they are in good company.

One of the places I find the most joy in teaching legal writing is problem development—writing compelling factual scenarios that give students interesting legal issues to work through is rewarding and fun.  The best prompts will motivate students to really jump into their role representing their client and encourage them to think about the “big picture”—how the law ties into social, political, and economic structures in society at large.  Much has been written about the best ways to do this in the context of litigation assignments (briefs, memos, etc.),

The American Bar Association now requires law schools to provide “education to law students on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism.”[1] But how can a law professor navigate these challenges in the current cultural climate fraught with polarizing divisiveness?

1. Introduction

On April 19, 2024, Taylor Swift dropped her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department (and The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology).[1]  The lyrical savant takes listeners through a journey of happiness, heartbreak, affairs, post-mortem examinations, alien abductions, zombies, Super Bowls, and, of course, Florida.  Although law students everywhere likely listened to the album while studying for (o

I hate page limits. I also hate overlong legal writing, but I don’t think page limits are the best solution for that problem. Overlong legal writing happens for three main reasons: wordiness, writing about irrelevant issues, and providing too much rule explanation or rule application on relevant issues. Much has been written on the first of these,[1] and we all work with our students on avoiding the second by teaching them how to identify relevant issues.

Most students are unpleasantly surprised by their first set of law school grades. After working diligently and expecting whatever worked well in undergraduate classes to work in law school classes, many well-intentioned students are disappointed that they did not get an A on their first legal writing assignment. I was. I came to law school expecting to receive glowing praise on my writing assignments. After all, I had a lot of undergraduate academic writing experience.

It is no secret that law students face high levels of stress that can manifest in challenging mental and physical outcomes.[1] The rigors of undergraduate study do not necessarily prepare students for the challenges they will face in law school.