Getting Skilled

I had my doubts about this required Lawyering Skills course, but the more I go the more I like it. Lawyering Skills I is a once-a-week, pass/fail course in which an experienced local attorney comes to the school to teach small groups of us about the brass tacks of litigation (there is a parallel course for students planning to do transactional law; I had to choose between them in the spring). Most of the class is about how to draft the many documents that make up a lawsuit.

I've heard that some of the Skills teachers (there are a dozen or so) are on the stuffy side, but mine is excellent. He has been practicing for twenty-five years, so his advice is practical and backed up with terrific anecdotes. Unfortunately, most of the anecdotes go to show what many of us already suspected: in court, winners are often determined less by the law than by the technical skills of the lawyers involved.