Legal Writing

There is an evil thing called legal writing. Intro, brief answer, SOF, discussion, and conclusion... almost like the colors of the rainbow song, with lots of CRAC in there. Love it. Actually it can be somewhat enjoyable if you know what you want to write. But my 1L class is currently in the midst of completing their graded memo... and most of us are not really livin la vida loca right now.

To think this one 14-17 page assignment is worth half our grade, aka 2.5 credits, aka quite a significant chunk of our 'uber duber important' 1L grades... sigh. I'm defending the plaintiff, a lying, drug-using, urine-swapping little cheat. Well, I wouldn't dislike her so much if the subrule wasn't so difficult to formulate. BUT IT IS.

One thing that surprised me about legal writing, but shouldn't have, is how little being "a good writer" really matters. People think English majors and argumentative people are the ones who excel in law school... but really, it's just whoever can be the most analytical and connect the most dots. Dot-connecting is highly prized.

the law school challenge.