Congratulations to 2L Adam Carey for his blog entries on The Gavel being picked up in the December issue of the American Bar Association’s Student Lawyer magazine. Earlier this semester, Adam blogged about the importance of Legal Research & Writing (LRW). In fact, he declared it the “most important class of your career” and authored two blog posts on the subject.
Adam worked last summer in a DA’s office in Kansas. He put his LRW skills to good use writing a brief for a case that was argued before the Kansas Supreme Court this fall.
If you haven’t seen the December issue of Student Lawyer, they ask:
“1L’s: What’s the most important class for your law career?”
This answer from a 2L at Oklahoma City University (OCU) School of Law might surprise you: It’s legal research and writing, he believes.
In a post called “LRW: The Most Important Class of Your Career: Part 1″ at OCU LAW’s The Gavel, guest blogger Adam Carey writes that 1Ls often give this class lowest priority. Some dislike the Bluebook and others think their other courses deserve more time because they find them more difficult.
What’s the problem with that? “The very essence of being an attorney is giving informed legal advice and making persuasive, and correct, arguments,” Carey writes. “…The hapless attorney who charges blindly into the legal maelstrom without having learned the vital lessons presented in LRW is doomed to flounder and fail.”
Carey may still be in school, but he’s already seen how important research and writing skills are in the legal workplace — and if you haven’t already seen this, he suspects you will soon.
“During your first summer job it will become clear that legal research and writing is your job,” he says.
To read Adam’s blogs in their entirety, click on the links below.