Dear 1L, Please don’t stress about cold calls.

I did, and I regret it.

Scenes from movies like “The Paper Chase” made law-school professors seem like monsters, and before law school started, I played out a dozen scenarios in my mind for what my first cold call could look like.

Lawyers on LinkedIn attack law schools for not teaching students the practical skills necessary to be a “real” lawyer.

But on one skill, it’s the law schools getting it right, and, too often, the “real” lawyers getting it wrong:

👉 The skill is legal analysis.

When I left BigLaw after 20 years, I had 3 plans.

Each failed. Here’s the story.

🔷 Plan A: doctrinal law professor.

Naively, I thought I had a real shot. But as it turned out, I was missing “half the package.”

Dear 1L, Beware these 3 key differences btw college writing & legal writing.

1️⃣ LENGTH

In college, your papers had to be LONG enough to meet a minimum page or word length (e.g. “must be at least 25 pages”). Essentially, you had to keep writing more words to complete the task, and for that, you were rewarded.

It’s wonderful advice from 2L, Amanda Freeman. Make sure to pay attention to #8, and definitely reach out to Amanda!

💌 Amanda

Dear 1L,

If you want to succeed in legal writing this year, you’ll need to forget what you’ve learned about how to organize a body paragraph.

For high-school and college writing, you likely did something like:

But it’s no picnic for legal reading, either.

So strip some weight from everyone’s load. Try these 6 sentence shorteners:

🥵 TOO HEAVY 🥵 --> 🎈LIGHT 🎈

1: Despite the fact that —> Even though

2: In order to —> To

Thank you so much to Robert & Lindsey for hosting me.

💌 Amanda

Dear 1L,

When you get tired from reading—and you will this year—you’ll want to have some go-to podcasts to turn to.

-That way, you can keep learning even when your eyes simply cannot read another word.

You need a plan.

Sleep must be a key component.

Start a non-negotiable, full-night-of-sleep schedule, and start it now. You’ll likely need to practice & get acclimated so you can hit the ground running on 1L Day 1.

It’s official trademark status for Dear 1L!

I don’t quite know yet where I’m taking any of this, but it makes me feel proud to be building something that’s helping so many people.

Your support has meant the world to me. Thank you. Writing to you has brought me great joy.

But no law student wants to have to work at a firm only to find out it’s a mismatch.

You really need to do some detective work first.

Here are 6 markers of firm culture to look for & some ideas for how you might go about uncovering them:

I received a comment on my recent “5 Hacks” post from someone I don’t know. She seemed quite exasperated by it all:

“Writing great fiction is the antithesis of documenting complex transactions. . . . How can I restore the creative skill I possessed prior to becoming a legal writer?”

Today I aim to help lawyers & law students network on LinkedIn.

🟢 BONUS for law-related content creators & others who post: 
  —>  Drop a link to one of your recent posts. I will reciprocate by engaging with it, and I bet others will, too!

🔵 LAW STUDENTS:  I know that LinkedIn can seem scary sometimes. I still find that today.

Use these 5 hacks to make your brief fit the page limit—without cutting substance.

🔷 1: Convert sentences to active voice.

“The boy hit the ball.” (Active)

—is shorter than—