No Shoehorn Required: How a Required, Three-Year, Persuasion-Based Legal Writing Program Easily Fits within the Broader Law School Curriculum

Abstract

In prior articles, we advocated for a required fifteen-credit, three-year, persuasion-based, linear legal writing curriculum. Our model begins with persuasive advocacy from the first day of law school, and takes a sequential approach that mirrors the practice of law — from the initial client meeting to the appellate brief. It includes a separate track for those interested in transactional work, incorporates alternative dispute resolution and settlement simulations, and involves students in researching and drafting amicus briefs before federal appellate courts. Students are also offered several electives each semester to complement their required course load, and receive intense training in narrative storytelling, re-writing, and editing. In this article, we incorporate our proposal into the broader curricular context, and argue for more separation, not more integration, among the analytical, practical, and experiential pillars of legal education. All three are indispensable — and independent — pillars of real-world legal education: (1) the analytical focuses on critical thinking; (2) legal writing combines — and refines — thinking through practical skills training; and (3) experiential learning involves students in the practice of law. To help law students master all three, the curriculum should be designed in a largely sequential (although sometimes concurrent) order, to embrace, not blur, their substantive differences, and to approach inter-foundational collaboration with caution. Broadly speaking, analytical training should dominate the first year in legal writing, but should include an experiential component. The second year should combine analytical and practical skills training, and the third year should focus extensively on clinical work. Of course, a linear approach is not necessarily the best or most effective way to incorporate more writing classes into the curriculum. But three years of required legal writing, however structured, will likely benefit law students and the legal profession. As a recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported, college graduates “lack writing skills,” in part because “schools are not placing sufficient emphasis on writing and grammar.” Coupled with the substantial criticism from lawyers and judges about recent graduates’ weak writing skills, this places a high burden on law schools to focus more extensively on writing, composition, and legal drafting. That takes time — certainly more than a year.