Several months ago, a Touro colleague and I were talking about ourselves as writers and about our writing—published and unpub­lished. My colleague expressed interest in reading some of my work; I took this as a compliment. “Fine,” I said. “And I’d like to read some of your work, too.”

I write, yet again, from the once uninhabited corner of my New York City living room that is now my office/classroom/yoga studio/homeschool hub. Formerly, it was known as a bookshelf. It is over two years into a pandemic that has crystallized the razor’s edge upon which we exist, skirting the periphery of the random chasm of death, all the while indulging the urgent desire to be alive. As we cycle through the Greek alphabet with terrifying speed, Omicron now looms large. And normalcy seems an ever more elusive phantom.

Looking for an effective self-assessment tool for your students’ first IRAC[1] assignment? We were too.

As the COVID-19 pandemic pushed our students behind their screens, finding ways to connect with them became increasingly important not only for their learning of legal writing and research skills, but to help them feel support and care during extremely stressful and lonely times.

[1] The author thanks Erin Carroll and Nicholas Fuenzalida for super editing suggestions.

1. Introduction

Judge Gerald Lebovits remarked that “good legal writing is clear, concise, and engaging in ways unheard of in college.”[1]  

Teaching law students how to quote and cite effectively has always been challenging. An emerging citation practice—a parenthetical that says “cleaned up”—promises an easier way to quote and cite altered quotations. This should be cause for celebration, but as this article explains, (cleaned up) offers simplicity at the expense of accuracy.

Last year, I faced a double challenge: teaching a synchronous, online, required advocacy course and doing it at 8:00 a.m. During the long, northern, Idaho winters, an 8:00 a.m. class meant that we met in the dark for most of the semester. During the first class, my students were visibly sleepy and participation was low. During the second class, I knew what to expect and tried to inject more energy into my teaching, attempting to liven up the students. The result: I succeeded, but was exhausted by 9:15 in the morning.

I’ve been looking for ways to teach contract drafting to my students in a way that is more like what I did in practice. Teaching students to write clearly and unambiguously is an important component of any drafting class. But students need to also learn how to apply the statutes and cases to contract clauses. When I practiced law, I contributed to the substance of the documents I drafted so I thought my students would be better prepared if I had them read and apply cases in my class.

Lawyering skills professor, law librarian, licensed attorney . . . and video producer? The COVID-19 pandemic caused most of us to take on unexpected roles, both inside and outside of the classroom. Even so, I never would have predicted that one of my new roles would be a combination of screenwriter, actor, director, editor, and producer of a series of video lectures that I used in my newly-flipped lawyering skills classroom.