We really approach legal writing as a discipline. Mercer Law has a unique program structure where we do not ask students to take on the tasks of legal writing during their first semester of law school, we give them a semester to get comfortable, to learn the basics of law, to take a few classes to really learn how to read the law and learn how to analyze the law, before we ask them to learn how to write a type of legal writing, and it also incorporates a lot of hands on learning exercises where we learn how to peer edit, and we learn how to edit our own work, and also looking at our work from the point of what we are attempting to accomplish for our fictional clients.
I felt like it's really helped me identify, not necessarily issues, but ways to Improve in my own writing as well. I've gotten better at picking up just little grammar mistakes or even phrasing of the words. I mentioned it in the interview that I have for my post grad job, and that's something that they really liked. It made me very marketable, especially when I talk about how I'm drafting things you won't necessarily learn in your regular writing classes in law school, like a good faith letter, or even interrogatories and things like that. That's things you would learn to do, mostly in practice. It's helped me so much so.
Mercer Law is the only law school in the country that has an advanced legal writing certificate program, which allows our students to really demonstrate to themselves and two future employers the amazing communication skills that they learn while they are students at Mercer Law. By the time a student graduates with that certificate program, they can feel comfortable and confident, and any future employers can feel comfortable and confident that they truly know how to advocate for the position that they're taking students must apply to be accepted into the program, and then, over the course of their fourth, fifth and sixth semesters at Mercer, they take classes where they ensure that they have accumulated enough credits to achieve this certificate. It is an amazing opportunity.
I feel like the certificate program, and the difference it's made in my career has mostly been me finding my style of writing. Through this, I was able to find out, like, Okay, this is what I want to do. I want to write briefs. I want to write these motions. Like, this is something that I really enjoy, because I'm able to frame it in a way that's persuasive to my arguments as well. So it's really helped me find my style.
They learn more about analysis, they learn more about persuasion, and they learn the importance of being effective advocates for their clients, whether it is through their speaking or through their written word. It is truly a holistic communications program, and we truly believe that Mercer Law advocates are some of the strongest writers out there..
