Why You Should Try Out For a Mock Trial Team – Student Guest Post

A few weeks ago (see my post of November 16, 2012), I told you about the thrilling win of Northwestern Law’s Bartlit Center Trial Team (including my former student John Mack) at the Buffalo-Niagara Mock Trial Competition.  I’m delighted that … Continue reading →

Northwestern Law Holds Workshop on Preparing Practice-Ready Law Students

On November 30, Northwestern Law hosted a legal writing workshop on the theme of preparing law students to be practice ready, a topic of increasing importance to law schools and practicing attorneys alike. The Workshop was one of a number of legal … Continue reading →

New (free) iPhone App Promises to Improve Legal Writing

Legal writing is complicated because there are so many varying skills that the writer must keep in play simultaneously. I am a believer in the use of checklists to help legal writers ensure that their documents meet all the analytic … Continue reading →

Exam-Preparation Tip: How To Transfer New Knowledge Into Your Long-Term Memory

As law students prepare for upcoming exams, here’s some advice about how to ensure that the material you study is retained in your long-term memory. Redbook Magazine, redbookmag.com, recently reported on new research from the University of Edinburgh that found that … Continue reading →

Why You Should Write Your Own Outline, and How to Do It

You’re a 1L in your first semester of law school. Exams are approaching. By this point in the semester, you’ll have begun outlining your classes – or at least you should! Why should you write your own outline for each … Continue reading →

Work-Life Balance: Is It Possible in BigLaw?

The ABA Journal blog and Above the Law recently commented on a departure memo from a young associate who decided to leave her job at a large law firm because she found it impossible to achieve a satisfying balance between … Continue reading →

Another Reason to Develop Extremely Efficient Research Skills: Clients May Refuse to Pay Your Law Firm for Research!

The ABA Journal online reports that with the recession, legal clients are increasingly demanding discounts and refusing to pay for some items, expecting firms to absorb these costs into overhead. These items include the time of new associates, and most … Continue reading →

Judges Really Mean It About The Page Limits!

 From the “Don’t let this happen to you” department comes this real-life lesson of an attorney involved in a case in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida who, without leave of court, filed a brief that exceeded the 25-page … Continue reading →

Northwestern Law trial team wins Buffalo-Niagara Mock Trial Competition

I was thrilled this week by the announcement that my former Communication and Legal Reasoning student John Mack, along with three other Northwestern Law Students (Allison Freedman, Joy McClellan, and Kevin Jakopchek)recently competed as Northwestern’s Bartlit Center Trial Team and won the Buffalo-Niagara … Continue reading →

The Importance of Linking Words in Effective Writing

The Atlantic magazine, http://www.theatlantic.com, recently published a series, on how best to teach effective writing. In “The Writing Revolution,” author Peg Tyre explains the experience of one troubled high school, New Dorp High in New York. The principal of New Dorp … Continue reading →