Will law school prepare you for a career as a legal writer?
A CLE provider has said that legal-writing CLE courses succeed because law schools don't do enough to prepare law students for the professional writing required in practice.
This is true. I do not plan to debunk it. In fact, I make a little money teaching legal-writing CLE courses, myself.
But the need for and success of legal-writing CLE courses rests only partly on the law schools' inadequate training in legal writing. Besides, some law schools offer great training in legal writing.
The other thing that makes legal-writing CLE a success and a necessity is the reality that no law school could ever fully prepare you for the legal writing you'll do on the job. There's too much to learn, too much to master, too much that only experience can highlight.
For example, when you graduate, should you assume you'll never need to learn more about torts or criminal law or tax law? No. Law school does not completely prepare you for anything. It gives you a foundation and a small quantity of knowledge. And legal writing is no different from any other subject.
So even if every law school created a comprehensive, multi-year, multi-track legal-writing program with numerous excellent faculty . . . lawyers would still need training in legal writing. Yes, law-school graduates have a lot to learn about legal writing, just as they do about trial practice, professional responsibility, property law, . . .
This is true. I do not plan to debunk it. In fact, I make a little money teaching legal-writing CLE courses, myself.
But the need for and success of legal-writing CLE courses rests only partly on the law schools' inadequate training in legal writing. Besides, some law schools offer great training in legal writing.
The other thing that makes legal-writing CLE a success and a necessity is the reality that no law school could ever fully prepare you for the legal writing you'll do on the job. There's too much to learn, too much to master, too much that only experience can highlight.
For example, when you graduate, should you assume you'll never need to learn more about torts or criminal law or tax law? No. Law school does not completely prepare you for anything. It gives you a foundation and a small quantity of knowledge. And legal writing is no different from any other subject.
So even if every law school created a comprehensive, multi-year, multi-track legal-writing program with numerous excellent faculty . . . lawyers would still need training in legal writing. Yes, law-school graduates have a lot to learn about legal writing, just as they do about trial practice, professional responsibility, property law, . . .
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