—To me, it meant awkward alumni dinners, bar ass’n meetings, and cocktail mixers with lawyers 20–40 years older than me.

—I spent events like those wearing a plastic smile, laughing at jokes I didn’t understand, and feeling like a complete idiot.

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

I’ve identified the top 10 most common errors.

So I made a checklist for you.

I hope it helps!

▪️ Example: “There’s no unlawful wiretapping if one of the parties consents.”

✅ Improved: “There’s no unlawful wiretapping if one party consents.”

Shorter

Cleaner

Better

It’s called “Fagan of Hoboken & the Horseshoe,” and it tells the wild—and true—story of our great‑grandfather, Lawrence Fagan (1851-1921).

🔹 Born in Dublin, Fagan came as a child to a Lower Manhattan tenement where he attended NYC public schools, and by the late 1800s, he’d settled in Hoboken, NJ, where he worked as a blacksmith’s apprentice on the Hudson waterfront, gradually working his way to become a successful iron manufacturer and an active Democrat.

They:
—read the question;
—try to figure out the answer;
—then write an essay to justify that answer.

That’s the worst thing you can do.

Instead, you should:
—read the question,
—write one side’s best arguments;

1️⃣ MISTAKE 1:
You post with a FIREWALL. 👺

You post an article you’ve written,
but you give us no info about it.
And the full article’s behind a firewall. ❌

So we can’t read it, so we don’t like it or comment on it, and we definitely don’t save it. We just scroll on.

I thought I’d share this here, too.

1️⃣ Dear 1L (this one’s by me & is written directly to a 1L, so if you only get one book, it should be this one)—Read before law school and then use as a supplement throughout the year.

The RIGHT way is below each example.

🔹 DON’T say that “the plaintiff is like the Jones case . . .”

What you mean is that your plaintiff is like the PLAINTIFF in the Jones case.

You can apply these 3 steps to test if something’s set in parallel structure:

1️⃣ Test with the stem to make sure it would make sense standing alone.

▪️ Ex:
“The tenant must provide proof of income, a photo ID, and sign the lease.”

You should set up your essays that way.

To illustrate:

Imagine Negligence as a big corporation, “Negligence, Inc.,” that has a clear corporate hierarchy.

At the top sits the President, “Negligence” herself.

But we legal writers MUST use it, even where others don’t.

RULE: DO use a comma before “and” or “or” in a list or series that has 3 or more.

❌ A, B and C
🟢 A, B, and C

❌ He walked home, ate dinner and went to bed.
🟢 He walked home, ate dinner, and went to bed.

I’ve been saying those things for 4 years.

I’ve put up maximum resistance to anyone and everyone who’s tried to get me to venture outside the LinkedIn pool.

The truth is, I’ve been too scared.

And I’m still scared.

But:

Dear 1L, I don’t give out model cover letters for a reason.

A “model” is the antithesis of what a cover letter should be.

Instead, your cover letter should scream:

“I'm different; I’m better; you want me; you want only me!”

—What’s that you say? “However, . . .” is grammatically correct?

Yeah, yeah, I know.
I still cringe.

Here’s why you should reconsider using it:

🟦 Your reader is bored.

So while I have networking tips for you below, I am mostly writing to tell you I am thinking about you.

I don’t think this fall-2025-recruiting gambit is either good or fair, and I really wish you didn’t have to be its guinea pig.

But adjust, we must.