Anna Bninski ‘23
Staff Editor
Who are Legal Writing Fellows?
They are, at first, creatures of legend.
When Legal Research and Writing (LRW) began over Zoom last semester, knowing who was who made for a challenge. Some of the gallery-view faces appearing in our LRW I class were not the sweaty visages of disoriented neophytes. Scattered among us were students advanced in skill and wisdom, who already knew the way of the Bluebook and the arcane calculus of (not) underlining punctuation. These were the Legal Writing Fellows.
More seriously, as we all know, the Legal Writing Fellows are upperclassmen who serve as a bridge between the LRW professors and their many students, providing crucial feedback on the 1Ls’ very first stabs at legal writing.
With the tryouts for next year’s cohort in progress (the last day to turn in tryout packets is March 8), here are some professorial and student perspectives on the LRW Fellow program and experience.
When Professor Ruth Buck began teaching LRW in 1988, she had about 160 students. That was, she told me in an interview, “too many,” and required a cohort of twelve Legal Writing Fellows just for her own classes. Nowadays, she works with fewer Fellows. “They’re just as essential as ever, though!” she said, and added that the program has been around for some forty years.
In addition to simply providing the manpower to give detailed feedback on writing assignments, Professor Buck explained, the LRW Fellows provide a perspective that is useful to professors. “It’s very helpful that they’re both more informed than 1Ls you’ll be surprised how much more you understand in your 2L year!—and very close to the 1L experience. They remember what they didn’t know then and are able to get to the bottom of any particular issue that a student is having with respect to writing.”
One of the things that Professor Buck stresses when preparing a cohort of new Legal Writing Fellows is the importance of providing feedback in a way that 1Ls can receive well and actually act on. Professor Buck recalled a Fellow many years ago who crossed out the entirety of a student’s very first memo with red ink. She does not recommend this route.
Pictured: This legal writing fellow begins reviewing each memo with a healthy dose of excitement. Photo Courtesy of Perrin Tourangeau '21.
Erin Edwards ’21, a current Fellow, echoed the importance of finding a balance in written feedback. “Even with a perfect memo, you can be really nitpicky. Sometimes it’s hard to balance what you should comment on and what you should let go.”
Edwards emphasized that students learn just as much from feedback on what, specifically, they did well as from critique of areas that could use more work. After all, getting affirmation on the strength of particular research or analysis will enable the student to build on and replicate it in the next assignment.
“During 1L it felt like the only practical class,” Edwards recalled. “I felt like it was really teaching me a skill that I could go apply somewhere.” That experience brought her back to LRW. “I wanted to become a Legal Writing Fellow because I really wanted to stress to my students why this class was worth their time. I understand that not everyone will be quite as enthusiastic as I am about LRW, but when students take feedback seriously, when I see every single written assignment get better—that’s really enjoyable.”According to Perrin Tourangeau ’21, another current Legal Writing Fellow, the benefits of the program flow both ways. “Helping other people work on memos and briefs has made me a more efficient writer,” she said. “You see a bunch of mistakes that everybody makes—it’s amazing how consistent it is—and think ‘I definitely did that last year!’ It helps you avoid errors and think about your process.” Particularly, reading many memos attuned her to a common tendency: “Everyone has the inclination to want to use big words and sound very academic, and you don’t want to be casual. But that can make it longer than it needs to be—or there’s a more clear way to say things.”
Pictured: This legal writing fellow has to sometimes give more constructive criticism than positive feedback. Photo Courtesy of Perrin Tourangeau '21.
Both Tourangeau and Edwards mentioned that serving as a Legal Writing Fellow makes for a unique way to get to know newer students in an explicitly academic context. It’s also “resume gold” in Professor Buck’s estimation, a sentiment that Edwards concurred with. “It caught employers’ eyes, which is an extra benefit. Being a Fellow, you’re signaling: Legal writing is so important to me that I’m willing to spend a significant amount of time helping other people become better writers. It’s helpful for the job or clerkship search.”
Aside from those benefits, how should one sum up the experience of being a Legal Writing Fellow? Tourangeau put it succinctly: “It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun.”
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amb6ag@virginia.edu