I received this letter from the Pennsylvania Bar. It hit me kind of hard.

It’s not a bad thing or anything like that. But it’s a clear change in official status.

It is bittersweet, too, as I loved practicing law, and it will always be a big part of me.

Dear 1L,

The best interview advice I ever received was to ask the type of questions that my interviewer would enjoy answering.

Why does this work?

Many of you are writing summary judgment briefs under Rule 56 this spring. Yet in your fall Civ Pro class, you’re lucky if Rule 56 even came up. Worse still, you’ve never written a summary judgment brief before.

I thought a little primer on procedure, with some phrases you might use, would help.

Dear Legal Writer, If you want a quick read that’s chock-full of info & advice on written & oral advocacy, I recommend:

“Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges,” by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the well-known, legal-writing scholar, Bryan A. Garner (“MYC”).

If you work your way up through the BigLaw associate ranks like I did, eventually you face a time of reckoning. The only question becomes:

⁉️ Do you have a book of business? ⁉️

You may even awake one cold day to the stark reality that even though you’ve done a superlative job as an associate, there is only up, out, or, in select cases, on indefinite “hold.”

Dear 1L, When you have to write -the kind of brief you’ve never written before, on a topic you’ve never written about before, in a court you’ve never practiced in before, please do not start without several good models.

Pull the briefs from the most applicable court cases you’ve found from your research.

Read models from legal writers who are better at writing and have more experience than you.

Dear 1L, I wish I had a magic potion. You all could take it and convert Bs, Cs & Ds into As this spring. But alas, I have only my words. So please listen:

If you want your spring grades to differ from those of the fall, YOU must do something different. It’s not enough to study “longer” or “harder” this semester. You need to study “smarter.”

Today I write about a writing question I just faced: Should you capitalize the word that comes after a colon (“:”)?

In other words, should the “should” in the preceding sentence be capitalized?

Answer: I’ve found no legal-writing style guide on the topic. Under non-legal, writing-style guides, the answer is inconsistent.

“What will the economy mean for law-firm job offers after this summer—and beyond?”

That’s a common question I’ve gotten from a lot of you lately. (And same query as to other legal jobs.)

The concern seems to stem from the last bad recession in 2009, when many started 3L with deferred offers, or none at all.

Dear 1L, This may sound silly, but one thing I did during 1L weekdays that really helped me was to eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch each day, at roughly the same time each day.

During those time-blocks, I sat alone and did my reading for the classes coming up later that same day.

Dear 1L, From Day 1, I was lost in Con Law. Out of my league.

At my school, there were 2 camps of people. In one were the PoliSci/Gov. majors. And their friends: the read-multiple-newspapers-every-day types.

They assembled in the library lounge to read the library’s hard-copy subscriptions each afternoon. And they blathered on about politics.

Dear 1L, Today I have news to celebrate: #Dear1L has 2,000 followers!

I’ve never publicly celebrated any milestone in my own follower count before. Doing so has never felt quite right to me (which is stupid, I know, and I’m trying to get past).

But with Dear 1L, I’ve been eager to promote.

Conventional wisdom says the best way to become a better writer is to read a lot of good writing. That may be true, but I find it impractical for too many.

What percentage of lawyers and law students have daily free time to read significant additional writing, “good” or otherwise?

Dear Legal Writer: Don’t create ambiguity by using “while” to mean “although.” Here’s the problem:

Example 1: “While the stove is off, the toaster works.”

❓ What does the writer mean in the below sentences, A or B?

If you’re feeling anxious about upcoming interviews for your first “legal” job, that’s normal. Here’s some advice from the 100 or so law-student interviews I’ve conducted.

1. BE YOURSELF. The best job interviews proceed like a normal conversation.

🔹 Do not recite rehearsed answers.