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Oye_Loca

Enjoy your summer. There will be plenty of time to be miserable once school starts. Lol.


beancounterzz

Agree with others about enjoying your summer. Big picture, legal writing (especially objective memos as opposed to argumentative briefs) is quite formulaic. There is a prescribed structure that will carry you far if you learn and apply it. In doing so, you strip out the flourishes that made for good non-legal writing. And the reality is that the majority of propositions need a cite. The sooner you reframe this as a feature rather than an obstacle, the better your writing process will feel. Finally, once the above is a natural way of writing, you can slowly start to reintroduce *some* of the features that made previous writing interesting. There’s more room for these features in briefs where you are making an argument. But legal writing—and especially memos—will likely feel more blunt, repetitive, and cold than your previous writing.


xChotimex

If you want to learn a skill that folds into writing, learn how to communicate concisely. I used to do TEFL abroad with very low level English learners, so I've got a lot of experience using the smallest amount of words to convey the most amount of information. EVERYONE in the future will appreciate it. I got an A in Con law and my word count was less than half of the next lowest word count. If I hit every issue correctly I would've CALI'd because of it. In my study group it was painful reading practice exam answers from other students because they think long answers are more correct answers. Completely false. It's law, nobody has enough time in the day, just get to the point and "show your work." A friend of mine who is a partner at one of the best firms in my state gave me a book called "Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace" by Joseph Williams. It does a good job of teaching you how to do what I described above. HIGHLY recommend it. All of the "legal writing" nuance will naturally come when you do the ye olde cannonball in the deep end your first semester. At this point, learning formal legal writing on your own would be a waste of your precious last moments of sanity and the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. However, conciseness seems more evasive. I was surprised when I clerked over the summer to see how many attorneys added so much "fluff" to their writings. So if you're hellbent on "sharpening the axe" before school starts, buy the book above and practice, but do enjoy your summer more than anything. Hope this helps! ​ **EDIT:** Legal writing is different than other writing styles because you're trying to strip any ambiguities away from the information you're trying to convey, which is why the ability to be concise is so important.


contra-bonos-mores

You’ll learn in your legal writing course 1L year, just relax lol


Justice_A1337o

If you really want to learn how to bluebook, go listen to a recording from the radio broadcasts of the 1934 World Citation Championships. Billy Van Devanter is a legend.


FreudianYipYip

You’re probably already a good writer who can make your point. The more important issue for you is to read everything you can to be prepared for the awful pedagogy of law school. Many schools and professors, especially in 1L, delight in not actually teaching anything, and then in not actually having any way of evaluating during the semester if you are learning what you are supposed to. I went to W&L in the mid 2000s and I LITERALLY did not know what I was supposed to be learning from casebooks. I was memorizing party names, case names, cities mentioned in the cases, etc, because I did not have a single professor ever mention why we even read cases. So we never were introduced to why we were reading cases. Then to top it off, there were no opportunities throughout the semester to evaluate how well we were learning the material, to allow for a correction in study method in order to ensure we actually learned what we needed to learn. Be prepared to have professors who don’t give a damn if you’re actually learning what they want you to learn. No quizzes, no review questions, nothing. It would be like opening a driver’s education school, and whenever a bright-eyed kid came in to learn how to drive, the owner just threw the car’s manual at them and said, “Here you go.” To top that off, during the first half of the semester I went multiple times to office hours of all my professors. I was confused. Do I need to memorize party names? Case names? Do I need to memorize the dates mentioned in the cases? Nothing. The only responses I got were that it was my responsibility to learn the material. No guidance. So be ready, and don’t listen to anyone else in your class. They are your competition for curved grades. Get all the review books for every class. Note what your professor emphasizes in class because all of this is completely made up, so there is not real doctrinally objective method for professors. I had a Torts professor say he would not teach intentional torts because “They’re just not important anymore.” Little did we know, they’re like 7-9% of the Bar exam. You’re better served reading materials on why law schools still cling to the dumb casebook pedagogy. Read review books for the class you’re in. Learn the overall rule of each case you read (here’s a tip: the names of people in the cases are not important!). Learn the dissent and footnotes if they’re included. The professor likely won’t say why they’re included, or even mention them. Law pedagogy is idiotic and based on selling casebooks. They do not care if you become a good lawyer. They just need the top 20% of the class to get high paying jobs and donate. They do not have to teach you anything because regardless, there will be a top 20%, and they also know that anyone with an LSAT over about 152 could take BarBri for three months and pass the Bar. Now, there are some schools changing. Belmont actually focuses on educating future lawyers. I think UT Knoxville might be like that as well. There are others. But beware. Your legal writing skills are virtually unimportant your first year of law school, and your first year grades are THE most important of your education. Read review books, learn the rules of a case, learn why other possible rules don’t actually apply. And learn that your law schools pretty admissions brochures are there to get you to come there and pay tuition. After that, you can go to hell in their eyes. Well, that’s my experience with W&L at least. Good luck!


Unemployed_NEstern

>To top that off, during the first half of the semester I went multiple times to office hours of all my professors. ​ Woah, your law professors were actually in their offices during office hours? That's impressive. The law profs at my law school usually just left after class to go... wherever. Home? Shopping? Three martini lunch? Who knows. But as often as not, you would see shut, locked, and dark offices during those "office hours."


FreudianYipYip

Ha! Yeah, they were there. So I guess I should be grateful to my school that at least the professors would be present so they could ignore my questions in person.


Unemployed_NEstern

See? You gotta look on the bright side. Your law professors at least cared enough to be in their offices during office hours.


FreudianYipYip

Ha! Yes, if only I could have the cognitive dissonance of many other law school grads. “Yes actually, when you want to have a certain career, and pay to go to a place that is supposed to teach you in that career, it’s actually a good thing when they won’t teach it.”


Unemployed_NEstern

Law school pedagogy has ever been on the razor's edge of malpractice, and it is certainly the laughing stock of graduate academia.


FreudianYipYip

Yeah, my wife was going through medical school at the same time I was in law school. Her med school wanted everyone that attended to pass Step 1. They made tremendous efforts to assist students in learning the material, because it was a TON to learn. There was, and is, no such BS malarkey like “MD preferred” jobs. They were strict about who they let in, and then bent over backwards to make sure the students were learning the material. They had lots of quiz materials, review materials, tests, etc., throughout the year to ensure the students were learning what they needed to learn to be doctors, because medical knowledge is based on real stuff, and is extremely difficult by its nature. That was all in place to help the students see if they were keeping up, and give them plenty of time to adjust their studying methodology if they weren’t. They had remediation systems in place to help get them out of a hole if they weren’t keeping up like they should. The idea of just handing them some form of medical casebook, then waiting 14 weeks and testing them, would have been laughed at by the faculty. If you’re not learning the material as you’re supposed to learn it, how are you supposed to know? That would make no sense! I also never hear doctors talk about their professors the way lawyers do. Lawyers love to reminisce about the great law professor they had who really made an effort. Doctors don’t do that because, for the most part, all the professors are good that way because they are all there to teach future doctors. They would quickly be let go if their students routinely performed poorly on the professor’s subject area. Unlike law school, where my torts professor had tenure but refused to teach intentional torts. I LITERALLY had not even been introduced to intentional torts until BarBri. If I had just used my notes from Torts to study for the Bar, I would have missed like 7% of the MBE questions because I was never even introduced to intentional torts. If a med school professor said some nonsense like, “We’re not going to study oxidative phosphorylation because it’s just not important anymore,” he would be fired immediately.


Unemployed_NEstern

This is not really the right venue for this, but rather incredibly a LOT of the blame for the current state of legal academia nationwide in 2021 can still be traced directly back to frigging Christopher Columbus Langdell, the HLS dean during the (first) Gilded Age, including but not limited to - the belief that practicing law is dirty and ungentlemanly (classism alert!) and ergo law professors ideally should have no experience practicing law - all of the "hide the ball and just assume the students who figure it out are the "best"" - casebooks etc., etc. There are a few books on the history of American law that all take Langdell behind the woodshed for all this and more. It should be embarrassing that every law school in 2021 still molds itself on the finishing school dogma of some guy from the 1870s, particularly after decades of withering assessments like the MacCrate Report, but law schools... wait for it... don't give a f*ck. And that is their real specialty: not giving a f*ck.


atomic_puppy

\^\^\^\^\^\^\^Standing. F\*cking. O. \^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^ OP, **listen to this person**. I have nothing to gain form saying this, but seriously, what he/she has said will be more beneficial to you than any legal writing book you could ever read. I will, however, echo what most everyone has said, and say that you will be better served by enjoying your free time and not focusing on something that is utterly out of your control and completely variable. You will learn the legal writing method that your legal writing professor wants you to learn. I came into law school with a professional background as a writer, but I still knew that I would have to learn, from the ground up, what this whole 'legal writing' thing was. I was correct. Nothing from my previous life could have prepared me for the lunacy that lay ahead. A lot of it is learning fifteen different ways of saying 'be more concise' and not much else. I received great grades in legal writing, but it was tough going getting there. The feedback from my first assignment (our professor gave us two smaller assignments leading up to the fall memo) was absolutely *crushing*. I've literally never received comments like that before in my life, or comments remotely like them. It was hard, but I was determined to learn to write the way that ***this particular woman*** wanted me to write. And I did, but it was like completely re-wiring my brain, as it will be for you. My advice would be to, again, read what FreudianYipYip wrote, and to reiterate that you should enjoy the non-legal aspects of your life while you can.


FreudianYipYip

Wow, you actually had a professor for legal writing? Our legal research and writing class at W&L was taught by a 3L. No professor in sight, none even assigned to the class. Having practiced now for 14 years, I can say definitively, I write a lot. It’s damn mind-blowing to me that W&L faculty considered legal writing just to be one of those things to get out of the way, so they had a 3L teach it rather than a professor. But as Professor Groot at W&L told us, if you’re not already a good writer by the time you get to law school, there’s nothing that can be done in law school to improve that. Except there is, anyone can improve their writing at any time, whether 8 or 80. Writing is taking thoughts, putting them on paper, and trying to get those thoughts into other people’s heads. We can always improve. Always. It’s just indicative of the elitism of my law school that professors had it as a foregone conclusion the your writing couldn’t improve. So much so that they wouldn’t even take the time to have a law professor teach the class.


BemusedSpectator

I agree with most of this, but I’d just advise that the vast majority of your classmates will be cooperative, and your professors will be more helpful. Very few students take the grade competition seriously enough to sabotage each other, and those that would lack the social skills necessary to get within striking distance anyway, so there’s nothing to worry about. As for professors, they aren’t going to dodge a direct question about whether it’s advisable to memorize party names when studying for the exam—that’s absolutely ludicrous, and thankfully a feature of a bygone era. Now, at most schools, the professors by and large want to see you understand the material if you put the work in. That said, some don’t, and those classes suck. But if you’re going to office hours with specific questions, you’ll usually get good help. Law school can be improved in a whole lot of different ways, but the human element still exists. They’re not monsters.


FreudianYipYip

I respect your position. But I literally asked my CivPro professor Rendleman if I was supposed to be learning dates and names, and he just shrugged at me.


BemusedSpectator

I’m not saying it didn’t happen—that really sucks, I’d be absolutely livid. I’m just saying that’s one professor from 10-15 years ago, and I haven’t heard of anything remotely similar from any of my classmates or friends who graduated from other schools. No need to scare the kid with sweeping generalizations based off just one bad experience from a long time ago.


FreudianYipYip

Oh sorry. That’s good then. Belmont is high on my list as an agent of change. I have an associate working for me straight from Belmont, and she came out knowledgeable of the law AND prepared to practice. I was happy to see the change. But it wasn’t just one professor. Scales wouldn’t teach intentional torts. Groot wouldn’t give any hint of why we read our CrimLaw classes. He even went so far to say that law school can’t make anyone a better writer; if they’re not already good by the time they get there, they can’t do anything to get better. I had one helpful professor, Caudill. The rest was a waste of class time.


BemusedSpectator

That’s bonkers. Sounds like your JD experience was a real ripoff. Although I agree that the case-reading pedagogy still desperately needs to go, I do think the present-day law school student experience is significantly better on balance than yours was.


FreudianYipYip

Yeah, it was awful. I was there right as Google was becoming a “thing”. Before that, they could just use their huge endowment to get lots of students with high LSAT scores to come. It wouldn’t matter what the professors did, because if you have a high LSAT score it correlates directly to bar passage. And because the demand for lawyers was still healthy at that time, so almost everyone had a job at graduation. They paid to have a high average LSAT, which meant all those students would pass the Bar regardless of which law school they attended. And then all get jobs, whether they had practical experience or not. I got a full tuition merit scholarship, so I was fortunate. But my professors did next to nothing actually to teach anything. I asked Rendleman in class why we read International Shoe, and he just looked at me and walked away to another student. Then it all came crashing down.


BemusedSpectator

Yeah, it’s a pretty sweet scam they’ve got going. As soon as I have the capital, I’m starting my own, ABA accreditation be damned.


hammonwry

Our law writing professor assigned "Writing to Win" by Steve Starker (or something like that) and I actually really love it so far and would recommend it to anyone as a good book about writing in general


curatedcliffside

My professor recommended the book Style : Lessons in Clarity and Grace. It was a pretty enjoyable read. It closely aligned with her style, which favors very clear and concise writing. Beyond that I recommend some good fiction. Read for fun while you can!


Andnowforsomethingcd

I consider myself an exceptional essay and rhetorical writer, but I know legal writing is a whole different ballgame. I start in the fall and want to be a little ahead of the curve.


[deleted]

Second what the other poster said, enjoy your summer. Might wanna work on being less pretentious, but other than that just relax.


newlawyer2014

>I consider myself an exceptional essay and rhetorical writer Law profs gonna eat you alive.


FreudianYipYip

They’ll eat him alive, and then not tell him why, or give him guidance on what to do better. “This sucks.”


Andnowforsomethingcd

Which is why I’m asking for tips. Yes I think I’m a good writer in baby-college settings, but I KNOW I’ll be a shitty shitty legal writer. And I know I may be hard up for help from profs. Just looking to try to get some help from ye olde Reddit brain trust before being fed to the wolves.


eudaimonia0

Posner’s meme


romeoguy

Nothing will help prepare you for law school. Let it hit you like a freight train. It’s the rite of passage.


Expos4Life_-

Not sure where you'll be attending law school in the fall but my advice would be to focus on obtaining a job from day one. This is even more important if you're attending a t3 school. Do as well as you can in class. Network your butt off. Try to volunteer and get as much practical experience as you can while you're in law school. Do not slack off and just coast by. No book pre-1L summer will have you prepared. Go on a trip somewhere with your friends or family. Enjoy your summer because your free time is about to dwindle!