Legal Commentary

I never planned on teaching Legal Research and Writing, but boy am I glad that I did.  I taught in Stanford's fellowship program, which is similar to, but not the same as (or, as my seventh grade math teacher always said--when she wasn't saying "I'm from the show me state Missouri, so you'd better show me"--"it's the same but different") programs at Harvard, Chicago, NYU, and elsewhere, in that Fellows teach the first year legal research and writing curriculum while preparing to go on the tenure-track market.  (At same later point I will share some thoughts about doing these Fellowship programs.)

In this series of posts, I will focus on the role of an LRW program (or whatever name it goes by at your school) in the law school curriculum.  Here are some topics that I hope to cover (feel free to suggest more!), followed by one initial thought:

• What does an LRW program try to achieve?
• What should the LRW curriculum be?
• Who should teach LRW?
• How does an LRW program relate to the doctrinal curriculum, and what, why, and how should doctrinal faculty think about the LRW program?
• Is IRAC Evil?
• Should we rethink LRW programs?

In my view, an LRW program is crucial.  In some ways, I think it is the most important law school class--in both the obvious sense (it comes closest to preparing students to actually do the work that they will do as summer associates, interns, and junior lawyers) and in a more controversial sense that will become clearer throughout this series.