Ivan Gabriel Briones

UV-GLS

The article “The Lawyer’s struggle to Write” by Matthew R. Salzwedel summarizes the difficulties and
experiences of a lawyer when it comes to writing. It gives an interesting take on this matter and also gives
a positive perspective on how to overcome these kind of difficulties.

Lawyers or Law students write so poorly because they have poor fundamentals in writing. When they
enter law school, some take for granted or even not bother enhancing their skills in writing. In reality, not
all of us have decent backgrounds in English writing and not all of us have forced ourselves to practice
them either. We are also practicing a so called traditional way of writing in law school that it could be
labeled as archaic. It is a skill that has been forgotten for a long time and only remembered when entering
into law school or while being a lawyer. Knowing this, we can suggest solutions to aspiring lawyers,
people already practicing in law, law students, and aspiring law students to never take for granted the
opportunity or the time to enhance their writing and their command in the English language.

We have already established that effective writing is an indispensable skill when pursuing law or
practicing the legal profession. The importance of legal practitioners or lawyers writing effectively is that
legal practitioners or lawyers could convey their thoughts correctly and properly in different platforms of
writing. For example, effective writing could help lawyers convey their advocacy more whenever they are
engaging into political issues. Another example is that lawyers would construct better contracts or
structure better arguments by having a greater command in the English language in writing. There are lots
of pros in having effective writing as a skill when you are a lawyer and it is wise to give it much
importance immediately.

As what I have written in paragraph one of this reflection, lawyers or law students write poorly because
they have poor fundamentals in writing. If so, we must reinforce the fundamentals in writing to our
aspiring lawyers as early as possible in their career. We must also help them engage in a new and better
way in writing so that legal writing will be progressive and will have a better improvement in the near
future. We must develop the fundamentals in technicalities, in knowing when to write like an advocate or
when to write like a legal luminary, and also develop our fellow aspiring lawyers and law students
interest in enhancing this skill so that it would not be taken for granted.

I am looking forward to learning how to write effectively in this class no matter how we must go back to
basics or how complicated the techniques we must learn in legal writing. This would help me become a
better law student and in the near future, a better lawyer. I will treat this indispensable skill in legal
writing as a tool in progressing in my journey as a law student and in my future legal profession and
career.