. Forum

[LoganCouture]

Really hating the quarTTTer system right about now

[PeanutsNJam]

yeah write-on at HYS would be hell

[accessislife]

TY Access and msgchiet who don't post very much anymore but facebook a lot for the titles

[MurdockLLP]

Still have two weeks left over here (including write-on). Title change is too much

[radio1nowhere]

DONE

...for 12 hours and then write on starts oh god. I really hope I have it in me to grind it out for another week, y'all.

I'm just sitting in the Grop looking at my packet which is still in shrink wrap blahhhhh

[Mack.Hambleton]

DONE

...for 12 hours and then write on starts oh god. I really hope I have it in me to grind it out for another week, y'all.

I'm just sitting in the Grop looking at my packet which is still in shrink wrap blahhhhh

Heh sucka

[GreenEggs]

How long do people spend doing the write-on?

[Joscellin]

How long do people spend doing the write-on?

About a week. (You're welcome)

[dabigchina]

How long do people spend doing the write-on?

yeah this thing is kind of a bitch

[PeanutsNJam]

I don't know why nobody ever really informs 1Ls about the sheer quantity of work involved in write-on. For those who haven't gotten their materials yet:

Generally, there are two parts. You have a bluebook exercise and a writing exercise. The bluebook exercise is something like 20-30 pages of an incredibly poorly written comment or note, and you have to basically edit it. Grammar, spelling, word choice, and of course, citations. You don't just have to make sure the citation format is correct; sometimes there are errors in using the citations (such as supra to a wrong note). This is incredibly time consuming. You'll start slow, but I'd say an average person would spend, on average, 40 mins per page. On the first go-through. I didn't go through it again because I'm lazy, but if you do, you will certain catch things you missed.

You can drastically reduce the amount of time spent on the bluebook exercise if you become intimately familiar with the bluebook before you start. Again, a few law review rules are different from court filing rules, so your LRW knowledge isn't necessarily applicable in some cases. You'll have to go to the bluebook. There's shit like where an end/footnote call is supposed to go (always after punctuation, but before dashes and colons), or rules for using Id in end/footnotes. Our bluebook exercise had a 323 page accompanying document containing some of the sources the shitty document cites to, and you had to use that document to make sure it was done right. It wasn't too bad with ctrl+f though.

The second part is the written portion. You'll probably get a packet of maybe 20ish cases along with a few law review articles. We weren't told what the topic was; you had to read the packet and figure out what the "right" issue to talk about is. Many of the cases are red herrings, and you basically have to sift through what was for us around 350 pages of cases. Granted, if you're good at eliminating irrelevant parts of cases (where the court isn't discussing your issue), the amount of substantive reading you have to do isn't too much; it's probably like 50-100 pages. After this, you write your note/comment.

Writing the note/comment or whatever is the easiest thing, and the least time consuming. You will be slammed with bluebooking and sifting through your 300-400 page case packet. I started the day after materials were made available, spent like 4-5 hours per day, and had to work my ass off the last two days because I didn't actually start writing my comment until the day before it was due.

Another protip: outline carefully as you sift through your cases so you don't have to spend too much time going "I know I read this somewhere in this case where the fuck is it" while you're writing. Some cases are ctrl+f-able, some are not.

[RareExports]

I don't know why nobody ever really informs 1Ls about the sheer quantity of work involved in write-on. For those who haven't gotten their materials yet:

Generally, there are two parts. You have a bluebook exercise and a writing exercise. The bluebook exercise is something like 20-30 pages of an incredibly poorly written comment or note, and you have to basically edit it. Grammar, spelling, word choice, and of course, citations. You don't just have to make sure the citation format is correct; sometimes there are errors in using the citations (such as supra to a wrong note). This is incredibly time consuming. You'll start slow, but I'd say an average person would spend, on average, 40 mins per page. On the first go-through. I didn't go through it again because I'm lazy, but if you do, you will certain catch things you missed.

You can drastically reduce the amount of time spent on the bluebook exercise if you become intimately familiar with the bluebook before you start. Again, a few law review rules are different from court filing rules, so your LRW knowledge isn't necessarily applicable in some cases. You'll have to go to the bluebook. There's shit like where an end/footnote call is supposed to go (always after punctuation, but before dashes and colons), or rules for using Id in end/footnotes. Our bluebook exercise had a 323 page accompanying document containing some of the sources the shitty document cites to, and you had to use that document to make sure it was done right. It wasn't too bad with ctrl+f though.

The second part is the written portion. You'll probably get a packet of maybe 20ish cases along with a few law review articles. We weren't told what the topic was; you had to read the packet and figure out what the "right" issue to talk about is. Many of the cases are red herrings, and you basically have to sift through what was for us around 350 pages of cases. Granted, if you're good at eliminating irrelevant parts of cases (where the court isn't discussing your issue), the amount of substantive reading you have to do isn't too much; it's probably like 50-100 pages. After this, you write your note/comment.

Writing the note/comment or whatever is the easiest thing, and the least time consuming. You will be slammed with bluebooking and sifting through your 300-400 page case packet. I started the day after materials were made available, spent like 4-5 hours per day, and had to work my ass off the last two days because I didn't actually start writing my comment until the day before it was due.

Another protip: outline carefully as you sift through your cases so you don't have to spend too much time going "I know I read this somewhere in this case where the fuck is it" while you're writing. Some cases are ctrl+f-able, some are not.

Yeah, this is all good. I would add that you should read your main case a few times before even looking at the others. Find the issue, confirm that it is the correct issue, and then plan out a couple arguments. After that, all you'll need to do is look through the other cases for relevant and helpful information. I was able to very quickly (like less than a minute per case) dispose of most of the cases in the packet.

[GoneSouth]

Wow, ok I thought ours sucked but it's not nearly that bad

[Dr. Nefario]

That sounds like pure evil. We were just given citations to edit, no article. And had to write a memo with one issue and the issue was specified.

[RareExports]

I think a thread on write-on tips and information would be useful. Especially because it seems like it varies so much by school. It's such a critical part of law school for many people yet it usually doesn't get the attention it requires or deserves.

(This is not me volunteering to start that thread.)

[Slytherpuff]

NYU's write-on is pretty chill in comparison - not sure if there are any NYU 1Ls in here but you can feel free to PM me for advice. Ours typically has about 5 pages of citations to fix and 100 pages of sources for a 1500-word comment (no specified topic, but there's no wrong topic to write about based on the sources).

[leslieknope]

Ours is like PNJ's except we have more sources for the case comment, I think. But there's no wrong topic to write about, you could go tons of different places with it based on the precedents and sources.

[buckiguy_sucks]

I know you all could definitely tell and missed me dearly but I'm back from my exam self ban.


PNJ your write on sounds infinitely shittier than ours. Our bluebook test is just 50 questions and I don't think they red herring you with cases for the note.

But it doesn't start till Friday so maybe it is that bad.

[Minnietron]

I know you all could definitely tell and missed me dearly but I'm back from my exam self ban.


PNJ your write on sounds infinitely shittier than ours. Our bluebook test is just 50 questions and I don't think they red herring you with cases for the note.

But it doesn't start till Friday so maybe it is that bad.

Yeah, they made ours seem pretty straightforward. Of course, this was coming from the people the crushed it and are on main journal.

[PeanutsNJam]

I'm sad that ours was abnormally tough lol. I did learn a lot about the bluebook though. I learned more about it in like 3 days than I did in 1 full year of legal writing classes.

At least if I manage to transfer and the school has transfer write-on, the second go around isn't gonna be as bad.

[zhenders]

Exams start for us in 2 weeks, and our write-on begins June 7th. It promises to be utterly brutal. For starters, we use the Maroon Book here for our write-on -- which means we get to learn an entirely new citation system, just for the write-on competition.

Wooooo.

[landshoes]

The maroon book creates really ugly results, like unitalicized case names in the middle of italicized article titles. It looks terrible and it offends me deeply on a personal level.

[PeanutsNJam]

The maroon book creates really ugly results, like unitalicized case names in the middle of italicized article titles. It looks terrible and it offends me deeply on a personal level.

Bluebook does this too iirc

[dabigchina]

Exams start for us in 2 weeks, and our write-on begins June 7th. It promises to be utterly brutal. For starters, we use the Maroon Book here for our write-on -- which means we get to learn an entirely new citation system, just for the write-on competition.

Wooooo.

CLS does this too, except it's just a made up citation system that they tell you to adhere to instead of a real alternative to the blue book.

Isn't the Maroon Book supposed to be more straightforward?

[landshoes]

The maroon book creates really ugly results, like unitalicized case names in the middle of italicized article titles. It looks terrible and it offends me deeply on a personal level.

Bluebook does this too iirc

then they both offend me!

[landshoes]

Exams start for us in 2 weeks, and our write-on begins June 7th. It promises to be utterly brutal. For starters, we use the Maroon Book here for our write-on -- which means we get to learn an entirely new citation system, just for the write-on competition.

Wooooo.

CLS does this too, except it's just a made up citation system that they tell you to adhere to instead of a real alternative to the blue book.

Isn't the Maroon Book supposed to be more straightforward?

Yes, but I'm not sure in what way it is supposed to be more straightforward. Some claims would be much more plausible than others.

Also, I'm not sure why it likes to avoid perfectly good comma usage, but it does.