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How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:26 am
by theycallmefoes
There are plenty of threads dedicated to excelling in 1L classes, but none seem to address specific strategies for the legal writing course. All I know is that it can be a big time sink and that you shouldn't worry about it if it's P/F (which mine is not). So some more specific advice on how to do well in your legal writing course would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:28 am
by phillywc
the best way to excel is to go to a school with p/f
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:30 am
by Mal Reynolds
Research a lot.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 5:45 am
by KidStuddi
Pander to your prof. Shamelessly. If you think from class discussions that he/she is sympathetic to a viewpoint or a particular style of argumentation, make it happen in your paper.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 5:50 am
by First Offense
phillywc wrote:the best way to excel is to go to a school with p/f
Amen.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 7:20 am
by banjo
Yeah just go to a p/f school. I literally never opened a bluebook outside of class.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 7:21 am
by ymmv
First Offense wrote:phillywc wrote:the best way to excel is to go to a school with p/f
Amen.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 10:48 am
by 2014
banjo wrote:Yeah just go to a p/f school. I literally never opened a bluebook outside of class.
I go to a graded LRW school and don't own a blue book
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:15 am
by JusticeHarlan
Here's
an article by three legal writing professors that walks through what they look for in a memos/briefs when grading and providing feedback. It's written for other legal writing professors, telling them what to look for when reading student work, but I think it works well for students in the class trying to identify what to include in their memos. Look at all the "Clues" and make sure you're doing all of them in your writing.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:44 am
by Bildungsroman
Take your legal writing instructor's word as gospel even when she is verifiably, indisputably wrong. Then forget everything you learned in legal writing class as soon as you get a job.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:58 am
by arklaw13
Just figure out what your LRW prof wants in memos/briefs. Go to office hours when possible and listen to what they say.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 12:04 pm
by randomstudent
Get as much feedback as you can from your LW professor. There's a certain amount of LW that's just trial and error, writing, editing, and seeing your writing get torn apart and rewritten by better writers than you.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 12:05 pm
by randomstudent
Also, even if LW is a P/F course, what you learn in LW is going to be more applicable to your first job than most of your other doctrinal courses.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 10:32 pm
by First Offense
randomstudent wrote:Also, even if LW is a P/F course, what you learn in LW is going to be more applicable to your first job than most of your other doctrinal courses.
Lol - I had a partner at a pretty big lit firm talk about how LRW was useless as a class during OGI. Loved that guy.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 10:46 pm
by sublime
..
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:36 pm
by theycallmefoes
sublime wrote:Btw, Imma need you to chill just a bit, theycallmefoes
...Orientation starts Monday. I'm freaking out.
Spending countless hours on TLS is my coping mechanism. But, seriously, you're right.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:41 pm
by sublime
..
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:49 pm
by theycallmefoes
sublime wrote:theycallmefoes wrote:sublime wrote:Btw, Imma need you to chill just a bit, theycallmefoes
...Orientation starts Monday. I'm freaking out.
Spending countless hours on TLS is my coping mechanism. But, seriously, you're right.
Shit, I go there too. I know.
Just out of curiosity, what year are you again?
sublime wrote:I am mostly just kidding, but forreal, it will be ok
Thanks. I hope you're right.
Ah, I've devoted the past several days to the content on that thread. On the one hand, it's helped me come up with a plan to hit the ground running, which is great. On the other hand, now that I'm running out of things to read, I'm starting to panic again, which leads to me posting many, many questions.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:51 pm
by sublime
..
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 12:51 am
by theycallmefoes
sublime wrote:And wooooosah.
sublime wrote:You will have plenty of time to be stressed in like 2 months, I promise.
Oh, I know. I can already feel my sanity slipping away, and it's downhill from here. I don't know how I'll survive.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 1:35 am
by drive4showLSAT4dough
theycallmefoes wrote:sublime wrote:And wooooosah.
sublime wrote:You will have plenty of time to be stressed in like 2 months, I promise.
Oh, I know. I can already feel my sanity slipping away, and it's downhill from here. I don't know how I'll survive.
You are going to law school to get a job as a lawyer. Your anxiety will not help you do that. Do you take Xanax (or an equivalent)?
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 1:37 am
by Mal Reynolds
What if I told you a lot of law school just comes down to your innate abilities.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 1:48 am
by theycallmefoes
drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:theycallmefoes wrote:Oh, I know. I can already feel my sanity slipping away, and it's downhill from here. I don't know how I'll survive.
You are going to law school to get a job as a lawyer. Your anxiety will not help you do that. Do you take Xanax (or an equivalent)?
Ha! Not yet, but we'll see how the semester goes.
Mal Reynolds wrote:What if I told you a lot of law school just comes down to your innate abilities.
...This is probably an awful thing to say, but I would actually feel a bit better.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 3:19 am
by moneybagsphd
First Offense wrote:phillywc wrote:the best way to excel is to go to a school with p/f
Amen.
Re: How to Kill It in Legal Writing
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 8:27 pm
by randomstudent
First Offense wrote:randomstudent wrote:Also, even if LW is a P/F course, what you learn in LW is going to be more applicable to your first job than most of your other doctrinal courses.
Lol - I had a partner at a pretty big lit firm talk about how LRW was useless as a class during OGI. Loved that guy.
Fair enough. It really depends on the LW course. If you have a LW course that doesn't actually teach you how to research and write, then yes, it may be useless
as a class, especially if the firm already has its own writing program. But if you have a LW course that actually teaches you how to research and write well, I don't see how anyone can call those skills "useless."