1. The conversations we already have

Introduction

Each Fall, legal writing professors introduce students to the structure and format of the interoffice memo. The memo, of course, is the product we ask students to create to show their mastery of producing a written legal analysis. Before the Discussion section of the interoffice memo, however—the section in which that analysis is communicated—there is the Statement of Facts. I have not spent much time instructing students on the Statement of Facts beyond providing them with strategies for organizing facts clearly and effectively.

We all know the mantra: writing is rewriting. When we teach students how to write, we help them develop an editorial sensibility, as much as a compositional one. Yet in an era where students read and write less (except for texting, of course) and increasingly depend on generative AI, revision is harder to master. If students struggle with how to even begin writing, how can we expect they will know how to “begin again”?

Introduction

Seeking student feedback in a tangible manner during the semester has inherent value.[1] Ongoing student feedback can help a professor gauge what is (and what is not) working in the classroom.[2] The professor can take the temperature of the class and get a decent read on how things are going.[3]

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 . . . .