Legal writing is arguably the most important skill you’ll learn in law school. It is not intuitive nor is it anything like you did in undergraduate. Luckily, it is very learnable and you can give yourself a huge advantage by having the following guides to reference as you learn.
Essential Legal Writing Guides for Law School
Your grades in legal writing will be what recruiting attorneys care most about during your interviews for internships. Strong legal writing is a indicator that a candidate can provide immediate value to a law firm. Therefore, doing well in your first year writing courses will advance your career more than any other class.
These are not necessarily legal writing law school guides to sit down and read all the way through. Instead, having these to review and help you edit your paper will be hugely beneficial. You’ll begin to internalize rules and grammar as you write, reference a guide, edit, and repeat.
1. The Bluebook
The bread and butter of legal citations. You will become extremely familiar with the Bluebook if you join your law school’s legal journal. Either way, it will likely be required for your writing courses. Additionally, it will be essential to have a basic understanding as a practicing lawyer. The hard copy is great because you pay once and have it. Since the rules don’t generally change too much from year to year, you won’t have to worry about your version going out of date. However, there is an online version that we highly recommend if you join a legal journal because it has a search function. But, there is a yearly cost so you must continue to pay if you want to keep access.
2. The Redbook
The holy grail for legal grammar. This has every rule you didn’t even know you need to know. When do I use an em dash? What about apostrophes? Should I capitalize “court”? All of this and much much more is contained in this book. It will likely be required if you join a legal journal. Having this to reference will be the difference between conveying to someone with your legal writing that you are either (a) a professional and competent lawyer or (b) a person who happens to have a law degree.
3. Point Made
Point Made is one of the best books that teaches succinct, effective legal writing. For those of you that eventually work for a BigLaw firm, you’ll likely have the pleasure of meeting the author of this book, Ross Guberman, because he frequently conducts writing seminars with top law firms around the world.
We appreciate the to-the-point nature of the book. Despite what you may think, effective legal writing is not stuffy or verbose. Point Made will show you how to clearly and persuasively make your points. Although this is a book for practicing professionals, if you have it handy as a law study we assure you that your legal writing grades will greatly benefit.
Conclusion: Legal Writing is the Best Skill to Learn
Improving your legal writing can help in some many areas of your career development. Your grades will improve in every class. Internships will go better with improved legal writing skills. There are even competition in law school where the winner, based on legal writing, is awarded a legal scholarship. For all these reasons, if there is one skill law students need to prioritize, it is becoming the best legal writing student possible.