Welcome to my LinkedIn archive.
Categories: Dear 1L, Dear 2L, Legal Writing
By Year: 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021
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Search by word to find what I’ve written on the topic of your choosing!
There’s a right way and a wrong way to approach a law-school essay exam.
Unfortunately, most 1Ls do it the wrong way.
They:
—read the question,
—try to figure out the answer, and
—write an essay to justify that answer.
Instead, the better way is to do this:
Dopamine Decorating
Dear 1L,
I thought of you as I woke today.
A still-dark scene on my window bay.
Forever it took for the sun to arise,
And away it did go then, long before 5.
So while, on exams, you’ve a one-track eye,
Please do this ONE thing for me.
Here is the why:
❤️🩹 Up to 40% of you will graduate with mental health problems.
I had just had my second child. She was 3 months old, and her sister was 2½. I was about to lateral to a new firm as a mid-level, and I was scared.
🔹 The very first weekend at the new firm, there was a mandatory, 3-day, all-attorney retreat at some resort that was 3-4 hours away from home.
I was still nursing.
—My heart was still beating as one with my new baby.
No law student wants to spend a holiday weekend at school—
—on an empty campus,
—away from family,
—eating dining hall food.
But for many, that’s the plan.
—Home is hours away.
—Exams are not far away.
—There are only so many hours in a day.
And so, students stay.
Dear 1L, You really need to brace yourself for this Thanksgiving break.
Aunt Minnie is surely going to ask you,
“What kind of lawyer are you going to be?”
And Uncle Ted is sure to prod,
“Where do you plan to work after law school?”
He may even say something like, “I bet you’re going to be at the top of your class; you were always so smart.”
I brought 2 hats with me into every law school exam.
I took the hats out and put them on my desk so I wouldn’t forget.
One hat was pink, pale pink;
the other blue, denim blue.
And no, I was not going koo-koo.
Each hat had a letter on it—P in pink for the plaintiff, and D for the defendant in blue.
Dear 1L, In the past 4 years, I’ve seen 100+ 1L fall memos.
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.
One thing I do is review legal resumes. I see them from the full spectrum of legal peeps—
-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,
Dear 1L, This week, most of you will start your big memo.
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.
Sadly, I have heard that some law schools actively disourage students—especially 1Ls—from spending any time on LinkedIn.
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 no secret that law schools treat legal-research & writing (LRW) professors like 3rd class citizens.
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.
How to Learn CREAC
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.
In a breakout session at a networking conference I attended, the speaker asked,
“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.
Today is my birthday—the big 5-5. 🎉And yesterday was my 3-year anniversary of writing on LinkedIn™. Please indulge me some reflections:
🔹 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.)
The best thing I did for my book?
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.