Replace her rule with this new, refined rule for legal writing, and get your words right in your memo:

🔷 1: Do NOT vary the substantive words of your case.

Here’s a checklist of common errors I see in memos every year (so you can avoid them).

Save + put on your wall!

Please save this checklist—and share to help more 1Ls ♻️

(—even though I said I’d never do this again.)

Dear 1L, If I were savvy at sales, I’d make you give me an email address to get this attachment. But you have no time for that, so here it is, no strings.

—She doesn’t know any of the facts in the hypothetical.
—He doesn’t know any of the cases you’ve found in your research.
—They don’t know any of the legal principles you’ve found for your analysis.

NOTHING.

My task was to analyze whether a mother could bring a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

She wanted to sue the coroner who’d autopsied the wrong body (that of her nine‑year‑old daughter), where no autopsy was needed or authorized.

(35 out of 100.)

It was Oct 1993.
It was my first & only feedback.
I thought the world was going to end.
And it forced some intense soul-searching.

🩳 “Little kids” are short.
Periods and commas [.,] are little kids.
They sit on or below the line.
They’re too short for cars to see.
They must play safely INSIDE the fence (the quotes).

🛑 The WRONG WAY is to:

-Pick a random lawyer
-Learn nothing about them
-Send them a generic message
-Explain you want to “pick their brain”
-Make clear you seek a 1-time transaction
-Suggest that they “jump on” a 60-min Zoom

—All I said to myself was, ‘I can’t wait to finish law school and start making money,’ and ‘I long to get married + have children.’

When I was 34, I was married with 3 girls under age 5.

(That’s for 𝟐𝐋 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 jobs; yes, it is nuts).

👉 And it means you’ve got FIVE urgent tasks.

1- Update and perfect your resume. (Yes, it really needs to be “perfect.”)

They all say something to the effect of:

“I haven’t found a friend group.
Everyone seems to be in their established cliques already.
I feel isolated and alone.
Any tips?”

In the U.S.:

🔹 A “company” is a “collective noun” that functions like every other SINGULAR noun.

Other common, collective nouns in legal writing include:

When you’re new to legal writing, it’s natural to think:

—Courts’ words sound better than yours.
—Courts' sentences should be quoted in full.

—So if Dick and Dennis go play tennis, do NOT next say that “he” wins 6–3.

—If Mary and June take a walk at noon, do NOT write that “she” stops for tea.

Here’s the convention to follow:

🔷 When to keep them lowercase—