L: Is for the way you LARC with me!

Every law school has some sort of legal writing class. And every student hates it. At my school it happens to be called "LARC" (Legal Analysis, Research, and Communication). And we hate it just as much as everyone else.

What most people don't realize about law school is that for every class you go to lecture, take notes, study, and take ONE 3-hour exam at the end of the semester which determines your whole grade. Except for legal writing. Class is two hours long every week, but you get four credit hours for it, because there is so much outside work that you're spending hours researching statutes in the library.

And while we all bitch and moan about not being able to find a case on point, there are a couple good things about legal writing. And so I give you:

THE TOP 3 THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT LARC-ing!!!!!

1. It's only once a week! And that's once a week for three semesters, but at least you're not having as hard a time keeping up as you do in your other classes. You have plenty of time between lectures to figure out what's going on, and if not, your professor should have two or three days of office hours. You'll get it much faster.

2. Practical Knowledge. You're not going to need the Equal Protection Clause every time you take a case in the future. (The legal shows are lying. Not everything is an issue of protected classes. Sometimes it's just defamation.) You are, however, going to need to know how to go to the stacks and research legal theories. And even if you hate it, you need to know how to write with Plain Language Drafting. (NO ADVERBS. EVER!) LARC teaches you things that you need to know no matter what type of law you're doing. And it's nice to see your skill set growing throughout the course.

3. Playing Lawyer. In this time when none of us have passed the bar or do anything other than read and sit in class, it's fun to pretend we're grown up lawyers. Today in class we learned how to do intake interviews and our T.A. had to pretend to be our client and we got to ask questions. In two weeks, we get to present our findings to our "supervising attorney." It makes you giggle a little bit to think about, but we're 23 years old and playing pretend. How awesome is that?

The three reasons to love Legal Writing. Notice there were only three. Because that's all I could come up with. Not everything about Legal Writing is quite so lovable.