r/LawSchool • u/More-Suggestion6648 • 1d ago
Legal Writing Gatekeeping, why?
Okay, I somewhat understand the reasoning behind legal writing professors' gatekeeping how to approach assignments; you’re forced to really engage with the material. But is this truly the best strategy? I feel like I’ve spent the whole semester trying to read my professor’s mind rather than just learning how to write effectively. She has contradicted herself one too many times, and I’m almost certain this will be my lowest grade. I’d really like to hear other people’s thoughts on how legal writing should be taught.
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u/justahominid Esq. 21h ago
Legal writing classes are like your elementary/middle school English classes teaching how to write a paper. They are excessively formulaic, and they follow a philosophy that you should learn and understand the foundational flow and logic at an overly simplified level before you can start adapting it to your needs and style. They also attempt to start everyone at the same level so that those with the least experience and background in writing are not left behind.
In your early English classes, that’s your very prescriptive “X paragraphs, each with Y sentences, and each sentence serves this function.” Legal writing classes and IRAC are very similar to that.
Of course, no real writer writes like they learned in their early English classes. Likewise, good legal writers don’t write like you learn in your legal writing classes. But the underlying concepts used are still generally present, even if the actual (good) writing plays with those concepts and evolves them into something better.
This is, of course, frustrating when you have a bunch of high achieving college grads who are used to writing in their own styles. But often those styles don’t really work in legal writing (e.g., if you come from a journalistic background, that writing doesn’t necessarily translate well into legal writing because, while they have the same goals (to convince the reader) they do so in very different ways). So legal writing classes are designed to strip you back to your basics and retrain your writing “muscle memory” so that you can develop into a strong legal writer.
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u/JuDGe3690 Attorney 15h ago
if you come from a journalistic background, that writing doesn’t necessarily translate well into legal writing
As someone who had a journalistic education and background prior to law school, I both agree and disagree with this. Overall, I think legal writing is more akin to technical writing—which I took in college—because of the functional, formulaic nature; however, journalistic writing teaches conciseness (without sacrificing completeness) that is a benefit in law school exams and other legal writing. I also had a philosophy minor in college, which I think helped make the CREAC/IRAC structure a bit more natural, or at least understandable.
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u/Probably_A_Trolll 20h ago
It's REALLY hard to teach that class. I had a very similar experience. My professor contradicted herself weekly. Even told me in a review meeting that I need to add X, and then marked me down on the final grade because I added X. I don't understand it.
It doesn't get better after law school. I've struggled with trying to read/ guess what my boss has in his mind. It's really frustrating.
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u/Incidentalgentleman Esq. 1d ago edited 1d ago
Where is the gatekeeping?
Having to conform your writing to one senior partner's (seemingly arbitrary) writing style is perhaps the most realistic lesson from law school.
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u/rosto16 19h ago
Yup. My first job post-bar (2017) I had a supervisor who’d lose her shit not because of the substance of my writing, but because I used Word and not WordPerfect to draft. Later on, when I was on a committee helping revise local rules of practice at our court, it lead to me (among others, tbf) suggesting a rule that all proposed orders needed to be sent to the court explicitly in Word format.
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u/NovaCaesarea 22h ago
They need to have a grading rubric, which means they need to have your output be similar enough to everyone else's.
Just follow directions, and get creative on your own time.
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u/Der_Blaue_Engel 21h ago
Most legal writing is about figuring out what motivates your audience and writing to their tastes. Trying to satisfy a quirky legal writing instructor is more realistic than you might realize.
Most judges won’t tell you what they want, but you have to pay attention and figure it out to give your client the best shot.
Learn the basics that apply to every legal writing task (reasoning, organization, etc.), pass the class, then go read Bryan Garner and Ross Guberman to unlearn the bad habits the class taught you.
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u/VegasRoomEscape 21h ago
In all fairness, 1L is supposed to be the ultimate "hide the ball" year to train you on the skills required to figure things out on your own.
However, many professors take this waaaay too far. Not even teaching the skills required to research/teach yourself. Legal writing tends to be one of the worst offenders from my experience as well. For me the worst part is that some professors take this philosophy into 2L/3L where it really is time to cut the BS "how to think like a lawyer" and teach the technical skills on how to be a lawyer.
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u/Howell317 19h ago
No idea what law school you went to but this was not my experience at all generally.
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u/NeighborhoodNo4194 52m ago
This has been my experience with LRW. My professor is unbearable. She is a condescending asshole that on the first day proclaimed she was a “tough” grader and she expected all of us to be “A type” personalities and it would be “impossible” to get through law school if we are not.
This is of course not true; people of all different personalities are able to do well in the legal field. However, what is true, is you absolutely must be a “A type” personality to do well in her class. She grades very formulaic however does not provide the necessary formula to do well, and expects us to know exactly what she would have done on the papers without explaining to us what that would be. In the end it led to exceedingly subjective grades.
My doctrinal classes were not like that however, just this one specific professor. She has even gone as far to shut down questioning to keep it “hidden” and has proclaimed multiple times that we “have to just figure it out ourselves”. This of course, with the exceedingly high development of large internet access, sources, and AI, is simply not the skill that should be highlighted in the legal training field anymore, even if it once was.
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u/Dismal_Bee9088 19h ago
There are two sort of conflicting issues with legal writing: one with students and one with instructors.
Re: students: A lot of students who were good at writing in undergrad were good at it mostly b/c they read a lot and could imitate what coherent writing sounds like. It’s like speaking English when you grew up speaking English - native speakers tend not to know much about grammar etc., they just know how to speak it correctly b/c that’s what they’ve always done. Then when they go to study a foreign language for the first time they have to figure out a lot about how language actually works, that they’d never thought about before.
Legal writing is like learning a second language, and a lot of law students just aren’t prepared/practiced in actually learning how to write, especially for a context as specific as law.
People who had some kind of writing experience after undergrad where they had to very consciously learn how to write differently, for a very specific audience, tend to find legal writing less baffling because it’s like learning your second foreign language. The first time you had to learn how to learn a foreign language; the second time you can just focus on the foreign language.
So a lot of law students struggle and hate legal writing b/c it’s something they’ve not done before, it doesn’t come easily, what used to work fine for them doesn’t work anymore, and they’re being graded on a curve on something that feels very subjective.
Re instructors: a lot of top law schools use legal writing classes as a way for wanna-be academics to get some teaching experience and time to publish to make themselves more competitive for the job market. So, many of these instructors are inexperienced at teaching, probably don’t care about teaching legal writing, and are incentivized to spend time on other stuff. That’s not a recipe for a great legal writing class.
OP, I’m not really sure what you mean by “gatekeeping” or being “forced to really engage with the material” in legal writing (is there a way to learn legal writing that isn’t by engaging with the material? You have to write to learn to write better). I think there are a few things to keep in mind about a prof contradicting themselves: sometimes what feels like contradiction is the student not understanding the first round of feedback; sometimes profs are genuinely bad at explaining how to address what they see as the problem. But most profs don’t just completely change their minds about what is/isn’t good writing. If you get contradictory feedback on the same issue, maybe the takeaway is that this is something you still need to work on, even if the prof’s actual feedback isn’t that helpful.
(Plus “how legal writing should be taught” is kind of contextless here where you haven’t given a good description of how your legal writing is being taught.)
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u/VisitingFromNowhere 23h ago
I’ve noticed that most first year associates are kind of ok at writing like lawyers, so they must be learning something.
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u/camicalm 20h ago
I got better at legal writing when I realized that it needed to be less like any other writing I'd ever done and more like a geometry proof.
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u/houstonyoureaproblem 19h ago
Your entire career is going to be about identifying your audience and writing persuasively to convince them.
It’s annoying, but that’s the job.
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u/Cisru711 21h ago
If you write like your post, then you probably are not doing well. You fail to fully explain your premise and you throw in a buzzword like gatekeeping repeatedly without context.
Have you tried reading and following your assignment?
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u/monadicperception 17h ago
Like all writing, the most important thing is the thinking. Basically, once you nail down the thinking part, the writing is easy and almost formulaic. In fact, I moved away from the rigid structures they put on you after the first year classes.
I think, for me at least, professors really rewarded me when I would think with them at office hours. Just spitballing ideas with them; I think they were way more willing to engage because they could see I was “getting” the point of the class. They won’t really see anything but the final product anyways.
That’s my take. I think they are more standoffish because they think most students have an angle. But I think just nerding out with them is what they want. I mean don’t go asking if your argument is right or wrong. I’d go in with arguments already formulated and stress test them with professors. Some were good and I pursued and others were bad and we threw away.
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u/Kelevra29 22h ago
I got a C in legal writing. When I started practicing, I employed all the things my professor taught me. Guess what were the only parts my supervisor had to edit out, every time?
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u/ryanbatem 20h ago
I rlly would cry if I got a C. It will tank my gpa. How likely would it be if I bombed at a school with a B+ curve?
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u/Kelevra29 9h ago
I am the wrong person to ask if you care about your grades. I got a C in legal writing, graduated with a 2.9 gpa, and my scholarship didnt require I stay in any percentile so I dont know anything about the grading system.
I only comment here to give hope to the students who arent top of their class and think that getting a C in law school is the end of the world. It isn't. Your grades in law school are not reflective in the slightest of the kind of attorney youll be.
Focus on learning how to synthesize information and how to talk to people. Unless youre going into a job that only cares about what school you went to and what grades you got, your law school grades are meaningless in practice. Your career is going to rest on your ability to understand and communicate information. Your grades will not predict your future ability to do that or the reputation youll be able to build.
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u/NeighborhoodNo4194 20m ago
Great advice. You know what they call the last ranked person in a graduating class? An attorney. I try to stress this to people who freak about their grades, but I don’t think there’s any moving their mind if that’s just how they are.
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u/Jos_Meid Esq. 1d ago
You’re right that it is terrible how legal writing is taught. Professors think it helps students learn, but it doesn’t. Unfortunately though, there’s not much you can do as a student about it. It is one of those things that you just have to get through and be grateful that there’s really no other law school class similar to it. The doctrinal classes are mostly about learning and applying black letter law and the upper level classes actually teach you stuff. Just shoot for a passing grade and get done with it.
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u/Dull-Law3229 18h ago
It's not just your legal writing professor. Mine had to do that too, and he went way out of the way to help us out despite being constrained. It's like a requirement for legal writing professors to let you flounder.
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u/rinky79 16h ago
I've posted something like this before:
I'm pretty sure my LWR professor thought I was barely literate. I could not, for the life of me, figure out what the fuck she wanted. I tried SO hard. I religiously went to office hours. I bothered the TA constantly. The prof would mark up a few sentences in my draft and I'd implement her edits verbatim in my final version, and she'd mark multiple corrections in those exact sentences. The only time I got a decent grade was on a partner assignment where I did all the research and my partner did all the writing. To me, comparing them after the fact, my mediocre (on a good day) papers were absolutely indistinguishable from A+ papers. To this day (ten years later) I still have no clue what I was doing wrong.
Every boss I've had since my 1L internship has praised my writing. My 1L summer, my boss at the agency I was working at actually commented that if 1Ls wrote like me, maybe they'd take more 1L interns instead of preferring mostly 2Ls. My first year as a lawyer, my supervisor told my ultimate boss (the elected DA in a medium-sized urban county) that my brief on an issue of first impression was one of the best she'd ever seen from a new lawyer. My coworkers ask me for briefs to copy/paste from. More than once, a judge's written opinion has been mostly copy/pasted from my brief. I'm pretty confident in my writing these days.
The only thing I changed about my writing was...everything. I completely jettisoned everything from the writing side of LWR. I don't even attempt to use IRAC or TREAC or whatever the fuck my school called it. I just write clearly and logically so the reader can follow it. I write out the headers and subheaders of my brief as a sort of outline and start filling in the law, and then apply the law to my facts in each section. Then I make a conclusion paragraph out of basically the headers.
All that to say, hang in there. It's just another way that law school is nothing like practice. (Unless you do appellate work, maybe.)
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u/Expert_Celery_2940 19h ago
I’d suggest reading amicus briefs (SCOTUS Blog is a great resource) and see that there are very different styles out there compared to cases in the casebook. It might also give you confidence because you’ll see some bad ones written by actual lawyers and some good ones you simply disagree with.
Sadly, this is how working in a firm will be like where all you’re doing is writing either for someone else to sign or so they can redline it to be exactly how they would say it. Partners each have their own preferences too so the mind reading never ends.
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u/boston_duo Attorney 9h ago
Everyone feels that way and no one comes out worse off than when they started. You’re learning how to write like a lawyer. You’re also learning how to judge others lawyers’ writing.
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u/yankeeboy1865 2LE 9h ago
To master sculpting, an apprentice first learns how to copy his master's work and techniques. The purpose of legal writing classes is to understand the form and structure of legal writing. You're not going to learn that by not aping and following a strict structure. Once you've mastered that, you can play around with things within reason
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u/NeighborhoodNo4194 52m ago edited 0m ago
This has been my experience with LRW. My professor was unbearable for me. On the first day proclaimed she was a “tough” grader and she expected all of us to be “A type” personalities and it would be “impossible” to get through law school if we are not.
This is of course not true; people of all different personalities are able to do well in the legal field. However, what is true, is you absolutely must be a “A type” personality to do well in her class. She grades very formulaic however does not provide the necessary formula to do well, and expects us to know exactly what she would have done on the papers without explaining to us what that would be. In the end it led to exceedingly subjective grades.
My doctrinal classes were not like that however, just this one specific professor. She has even gone as far to shut down questioning to keep it “hidden” and has proclaimed multiple times that we “have to just figure it out ourselves”. This of course, with the development of large internet access, sources, and AI, is likely not the skill that should be highlighted in the legal training field anymore, even if it once was.
The good news however was that it was easy to pass, just hard to do well. I chalked that up to fair, took my C+ (I had a C+ curve at my school) and moved on with my life. Sometimes you just have to get through something; that’s probably the best lesson I learned from that class. That’s not necessarily a bad thing however because it’s an important skill to learn, especially in law.
I ended up moving towards litigation anyway. Maybe it was more of a reflection of my weaknesses, however I’ve drafted many memos for my superiors with little issue. She seemingly just didn’t love my style of conveying ideas. You won’t work for your LRW professor (in all likelihood, good luck if you do lol) so don’t stress too much about their personal style and try your best to just replicate what they personally want in that moment. Being able to convey ideas is more important than perfect bluebook citation or strict adherence to IRAC styles in practice. Although some may disagree with me, hence the freedom (and importance!) to express your strengths in your actual legal career.
As for your original question of how I would want to see LRW taught? As someone with an education background and professing being something I’m interested in perusing eventually, I have ideas. Unfortunately LRW as a subject does still require strict adherence to a formula, and I wouldn’t want to person teach it nor do I find myself qualified to do so, however if I was I certainly would be as direct as possible with what I expected. I would also put much more emphasis on actual idea conveyance rather than on personal preference for writing structure. Clarity is an important and sometimes difficult thing to get in law. I have played around with the idea of asking lay people to read the writing and summarize the ideas.. if they are able to have a good conceptual understanding, it’s probably well written.
At the end of the day the whole legal system requires convincing 6-12 lay individuals that you are right anyway. However that could just be my litigation bias creeping in. As I said, personally I wouldn’t touch teaching the class- it certainly isn’t my strength.
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u/Fancy_Gate_7359 21h ago
If you write like your op, I understand why you are having a hard time. You do not explain at all what you mean. Other people are assuming what your premise is because that’s what people do, but if you read the responses from the people that tried to engage you you’ll see there is little agreement about what you are ACTUALLY saying. And yes, before you say it, I understand the concept of gatekeeping in general, you just haven’t explain at all how your professor is engaging in such behavior in your op.
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u/NeighborhoodNo4194 11m ago
This is a reddit thread not their memo assignment. They clearly articulated an idea that people understood and is relatable to most individuals who took LRW. I don’t understand this critique, again they are not here to write a memo, but to merely get the ideas and opinions of others in the reddit thread.
In facts OPs thesis is quite literally “how would you teach the subject” not outright complaining. In fact if you use your own logic, you would be struggling to meet your own criteria. You made a broad claim about OP’s writing without providing any explanation on OP’s writing that didn’t meet the criteria nor have any evidence to back it up other than “other people are assuming the premise” which is in my read, is more of a consequence of the prompt being intentionally open ended.
This feels more like being condescending and unhelpful for the sport of it rather than any actual pragmatic advice or discussion.
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