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.

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. 

“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