writing | Biographer

Good Writing Is Good

Law school research and writing courses rarely focus on the mechanics of writing. Instead, these courses generally devote time to discussion of law-specific material, such as legal citations and legal research tools.

Unfortunately, this approach leaves some important—very important—matters to chance.

The basics of good writing, which are (hopefully!) covered before and during one’s high school years, do not simply go away on graduation day. These basics remain fundamental to effective written communication, and, therefore, remain fundamental to law school and bar exam essays.

If It’s Not Covered, Do It Yourself

For students who do not get a basic review of good writing in their legal research and writing classes—and that means most law students—, self-help is mandatory. Self-help approaches include:

undertake a serious review of basic English mechanics and style on one’s own
hire a writing tutor
take a class on good writing, either through the university associated with one’s law school or through a third-party provider

But skipping the basics is not the right choice—even if law schools often choose that approach.

Original publication date: August 15, 2011 (LEX))

Test-Taking Distractions Don’t Always Come from the Outside

In recent articles, the external distractions that can from from a testing center facility or a proctor have been discussed. But these distractions can be relatively easy to handle compared to the distractions that come from within one’s own mind.

Clearing and Closing Your Mind: Occlumency for LSAT, Law School, and the Bar Exam

Internal sources of distractions include several different types of worry, such as:

loose ends: the test-taker can’t concentrate during a part of the test because anxieties about not having paid the rent, not watered the plants, or not made travel or lodging arrangments

underpreparation remorse: as the test begins, the test-taker is overcome with regret about not having practiced and studied more

personal baggage: the test-taker has under-performed on some previous test and believes that there’s something inherently “wrong” with him or her that will doom him or her to failure on the present test

habitual self-denigration: some test-takers have a more generalized form of baggage in which they have become perpetual—and vicious—critics of themselves, telling themselves they are dumb, a failure, a loser almost constantly; these antagonistic voices and messages can reach a debilitating pitch when a difficult task requiring a lot of concentration—such as the LSAT, a law school essay, or the MBE—is at hand

One part of the solution to all of the above distractions is essentially a real-world version of “occlumency,” a form of magic resistance from the Harry Potter fantasy book and movie series. Wizards in the Harry Potter world are taught to block others out of their minds rather than let their thoughts be meddles with. Test-takers need to do the same, i.e., to treat all of the above distracting thoughts as though they were just little “curses” or “spells” that are being cast against you in order to take you away from your work. Dispense with them accordingly.

Not Easy, But Worth It

Building up this mental resistance to distraction is easier said than done. But the first step is recognizing that each of the above mental distractions is counter-productive.

Each one of these thoughts takes points out of final score by burning up your time and diluting your focus. These thoughts are not friends, not teaching you valuable lessons, not helping you to develop a stronger character or to be responsible. They’re just undermining your abilities and hurting your scores. They are, in short, point stealers.

As such, they are not worth one moment of your time or one heartbeat’s worth of emotional energy on test day.

(Original publication date: August 12, 2011 (LEX))