It’s memorable. It’s dramatic. It’s . . . technically flawed.

👉 Grammatically, the sentence says the bar exam died three times.

Why? Because of a dangling modifier.

Make this one small change to your LinkedIn headline—and you will immediately stand out.

Most profiles say:
“Incoming law student.”

That tells me almost nothing.

Now compare:

“Incoming law student interested in Labor & Employment law, ABC Law School.”

Today is Day 6—and last—of my Dear 1L® 2026 summer cohort for incoming 1Ls.

It’s been amazing!!
 
I built the course to address two surprises that will otherwise blindside new students:
 
🔹 1: Recruiting is happening before you even start.

Greta (my baby, but now 23) just released her first album.

The title is “Baby Fat,” and it’s fantastic.

I hope you will check it out on Spotify.

So far, my favorite songs are “We Both Know,” “Sunshine,” and “Just My Luck!”

But this one brought me such delight.

So we noticed a small nest on a high shelf, right by our front door.

And day after day, we waited.

No activity.

So we started to think it was empty.

Deserted.

Kidding. Sort of.

The truth is that lawyers actually use Latin rules like “expressio unius” every day—often without even thinking about it.

We use them to help us interpret constitutions, statutes, judge’s opinions, and all other forms of legal writing.

I have 7 students, and we’ll meet once a week during June and July.

The course is designed to help students:

🔹 Prepare a résumé and LinkedIn profile for the legal industry

🔹 Use the LI search feature to identify school alumni who practice law

🔹 Think strategically about what they’ll do with their JD

That curve will not get me!”

—(an incoming 1L actually said this to me last week)

ME: (sigh)

1L: “What’s wrong? I know it sounds onerous, but I don’t mind.”

ME: (longer sigh)

Yesterday was Day 2,190.

Six years, to be exact.

Yet somehow, hotels still put me to the test.

They don’t come at you all at once. They poke you. They prod.

First comes the lobby.
Warm smile.
Small talk.

They:
—read the question;
—identify the issue;
—try to figure out the answer; and
—write an essay to justify that answer.

Instead, the MUCH better way is to:

—identify the issue;
—write one side’s best arguments;
—write the other side’s best arguments; and
—explain why one side has the better arguments.

For today, I thought we’d start with some podcasts recommendations.

Here are 5 that I think you’ll like:

1️⃣ How I Lawyer. Jonah Perlin

This one is hosted by a buddy of mine, Jonah Perlin, a lawyer turned Georgetown law professor.

{—And I’m sorry if that’s not progressive enough for you, but it was 1993, and I was hell-bent on NOT ending up as a spinster.}

You see, I never wanted to be a lawyer.
My dad was a lawyer.
He hated it.
I wanted to be a high-school teacher.
Like my mom.

How I hate how my hands have been tied. Alas—

I have created a new self-editing checklist for you.

It includes the 40 most common mistakes I’ve seen 1Ls make over the past 5 years since I’ve been reviewing these briefs after-the-fact, and the items included cover the major points I would otherwise be helping you with individually.

I got straight A’s.
I followed all the rules.
And I never got into any trouble.

“The last of the sweet and innocent,”
the high-school yearbook dubbed me.

That was in 7th grade, but by 9th, my goody two shoes fell out of vogue.

My best friends started resenting me.

Step away and write the table of contents (TOC).

I swear this saved me in so many briefs.

It’s very common to get lost in the weeds of the details of the cases; you can spin yourself round and round.

You need to step back.
You need to consult the map.
You need to get away to see the big picture.