I am in the process of writing my first ever law school memo. It’s torture. It’s making me want to stab myself in the eye with a rusty nail (… ouch). It is completely and totally one of the most uninteresting things I have ever written. After 8 weeks of researching, drafting in small little blurbs (statements of facts, issue statements & brief answers, etc) I am finally at the point where I can write the bulk of my memo. I won’t lie – I’ve been working a little bit ahead all along. While we were writing the “Issue & Brief Answer” portion of the assignment, I had already moved on to the “Discussion” section, because I didn’t want to forget any of my fabulous ideas.
But writing this memo isn’t nearly as entertaining as writing a blog entry, or a press release, or one of my many as-of-yet untitled, unfinished fictional works of art (my dream career is to be a chick-lit author). No, this memo is painful. I had my work laid out around me; previously written (and graded) drafts, copies of cases, briefs, etc. My sister (who is in college with a major in PR and a minor in Writing) picked up one of my drafts and began to read, made a face and said, “this is so… dry.” Uhm yeah, I know. THAT’S THE PROBLEM. Law school, at first glance, seems like Utopia for people who like research and writing. There is plenty of it to be had. But upon closer inspection, it’s a whole different ball game.
I LOVE writing. I even LIKE researching. In fact, I like “researching” so much that one of my favorite boredom busters is to go on Wikipedia and pick a random topic (generally something like “Upper East Side“, “Tiffany & Co.” or “British Monarchy“) and then read the article, clicking random links within that also seem interesting and seeing where I end up. I don’t generally have a goal in mind while clicking these links – I don’t really care what the next Wiki-article I read will be, I just like to read and absorb “useless” information. This particular activity can keep me entertained, literally, for hours. It’s kind of pathetic.
The thing is, when it comes to writing in an academic setting, it is necessary to outline and draft and, as it turns out, my biggest pet peeves when it comes to writing are outlining and drafting. I loathe outlining (I know, that’s a pretty big sin in the world of writing). I prefer to just “fly by the seat of my pants” and write until it feels… well… right. I go back, proof read, and make edits then. I will write and re-write something 10 times, but I don’t like people to know that. It’s part of the reason I don’t like/understand the process of “drafting” for class. Of course there are drafts of my work, but why do I need to provide the professor with the unfinished version of it? I’d rather do it my way – write, proof read, edit, rinse, wash, repeat and THEN hand it in – when I’ve decided its perfect (or when the deadline approaches, whichever comes first).
For this particular memo, when we hand in the final draft in 2 weeks, we will be required to hand in not only the final draft, but also all of our previously graded drafts. The professor expects to see changes from our original drafts to the final version. So obviously my first drafts were intentionally imperfect. If I need to show improvements, why would I work hard to make them wonderful the first time around? I didn’t, obviously. I have taken the approach of doing the assignment, hitting spellcheck and then printing it out. No editing. No revisions. Nada. Because that will come later. I incorporated my professor’s suggestions into my final draft (even though I don’t necessarily agree with them, we have been reminding about 234 times in each class to “remember who’s doing the grading” – which is a polite way for our professors to say, “I am right and you are wrong, just do as I say”) and have been editing and adding throughout the weeks.
Feeling pretty good about my memo, I have just come to a horrifying realization. I need to incorporate all of the boring, mundane research I had to do prior to this point. I’ve got to go back and dredge through the cases about fences, nuisance, and bad neighbors. I’ve got to pick them apart, find the parts that are applicable to my memo (which should all be highlighted, if I wasn’t overly lazy during my researching phase) and add them into my beautifully crafted work of art.
In short. Law school is killer on my writing. I think my legal skills class is the class that, most of all, has made me realize that I am probably going to regret my decision to be a lawyer. Not because it’s too difficult, or there is too much work, or whatever. No. Because it’s making me realize how BORING legal writing and research is. And, given the fact that most post-grad jobs will consist of this boring writing and research, I am pretty much never going to get away from it.
This is all pretty good inspiration for me to get my act together and get working on my book though. If Snooki, from “The Jersey Shore” can get a book deal, I bet I can too.
PS: You’ll notice that all my links were to Wikipedia articles. That was intentional – to get you started on your boredom busting! Enjoy!
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