Every year, the EXACT SAME mistakes trip folks up.

Here are the 8 biggest culprits.

Avoid them to stay ahead of the curve.

**

👉 See carousel.

-legal assistants,
-law school applicants,
-law school students, and
-full-fledged lawyers of all levels.

I’ve identified the top 10 most common errors.

⬇️

♥️❤️ Dear 1L,

This is where ALL 1Ls waste a ton of time.

—They read the hypo & the research cases.
—They predict which side of the issue should “win.”
—Then they write a memo to bolster their own prediction.

And then it comes.
It always comes.

Perhaps the schools worry that students will become distracted from their studies or get discouraged if they see other students post about landing jobs or winning awards.

 🔴 Law students:

I get those valid concerns, but I hope they will not discourage YOU from missing out on LinkedIn.

It’s been like this since I went to law school in the 1990s, and it’s largely the same today.

LRW profs rarely get tenure.
They often have no vote.
And they typically make less than $100,000/year.

That’s a lot less than clinical profs, and only about HALF of doctrinal-prof pay.

Dear 1L,

The No. 1 question 1Ls are asking me this week is, “Can you explain CREAC?”

So if you, too, are confused, you are not stupid and nothing is wrong with you.

It is very hard to start writing in a structure that is completely unlike anything you have ever written before.

“How many of you have gotten a job because of a connection?”

There must have been at least 100 lawyers in the room.

Every single one raised their hand.

👉 Law students: This is the way to get jobs.

🔹 On turning 55:

—“Yikes!”

(We are definitely more than half way through now.🙀😱)

—But also, “Ahhh!”

(At least compared to 25, a birthday on which I cried, as I was 100% single and thought I’d grow old, a spinster, and die.)

Beta-readers.

👉 A beta-reader is like a test case.

—The idea is that you send a very early draft of your book to people who resemble the types of readers you're targeting.

—Then, you get all their feedback; you make the draft better; and you send it to a new set of beta-readers.

This happens a lot to junior lawyers.

When it happens to you:

Please DON’T guess.
Please DON’T wing it.

✅ Please DO find out all needed info info BEFORE starting.

Here are the types of proactive questions I recommend you ask:

For the very first time EVER:

I gave a big speech.
It was before a whole section of 1Ls.
It was for “Welcome to Law School” Day.
And it was my alma mater, Boston College Law School.

Never having given a true “speech,” I was NERVOUS.

Dear Legal Writer:

Put a comma or period INSIDE the quotation marks.

Do this regardless of whether that comma or period appeared in the original, quoted material.

Scope: U.S. Legal Writing*

Here are two examples.

1️⃣ Mistake No. 1:

The items don’t make sense with the words setting up the list.

🔻 Example: “The applicant must submit a filing fee, a copy of the permit, and fill out a form.”

The culprit is easier to detect if you diagram:

They may say they already:

-finished 2 pre-law prep courses,
-did the first month’s worth of reading,
-met with your professors at office hours, or
-copied all the final doctrinal exams from the library.

They didn’t give you much of a break, did they? Since right after exams, you’ve had the write-on, your first “legal” job, early recruiting, OCI, and whatever you’ve had going on in your personal life.

Whether you have a 2L summer job lined up or not, it probably hasn’t felt like much of a summer “break.”