law practice

The Art of Letting Go: From Division 1 Gymnastics to LP Memos

/ Malcolm Baytop / Leave a comment

As a former collegiate gymnast, I am no stranger to the discipline and intensity of mastering a technical craft. Excellent performance in the sport requires grueling hours dedicated to conditioning your mind and body for precise alignment. For example, when flying over the high bar, stretching your arms just a bit more after you let go of the bar could be the difference between catching it and falling flat on your face. 

Even at its most foundational level, like holding a handstand, gymnastics requires an extremely detail-oriented and analytical approach. When I decided to become a lawyer, I knew that years of painstakingly paying attention to detail in gymnastics would come in handy for the high standards of diligence in the legal profession. However, I did not expect the personal insights I gained from years of striving towards perfection in the sport to apply in my 1L law practice course.

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Write or Wrong: Is Creative Writing Helpful In Law School?

/ Eddie Godino / Leave a comment

Over a year ago – before I had even started my 1L year – I wrote my first post for the Impact Blog, which was largely about whether I felt moving from creative writing to law would be a smooth transition. With three semesters now under my belt (and the weariness to show for it), I thought it would be fun to revisit that topic and see just how accurate my predictions were.  

My perhaps overly-optimistic younger self believed that law school could be a progression of the creative writing skills I developed in college; that much of what I learned would carry over into the legal world. While that belief wasn’t 100% false, it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that. 

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From Prose to Precision: A New (Legal) Approach to Writing

/ Christopher Tan / 1 Comment

The end of fall in New England. The trees are bare. Leaves crunch underfoot. Mornings bring a frigid chill that whispers of the winter to come. During these reflective autumn days, amidst the trepidation of exams, I often ponder my journey so far through law school and particularly how it has reshaped my understanding and approach to writing. While in undergrad, writing was taught to evoke a more emotional response through vivid imagery and ideas, legal writing thrives on a different kind of grace — that of precision and clarity. 

Legal writing is a world away from the lyrical prose of Hemingway and Joyce. It is an economical discipline where every word carries weight, and the flourish of language gives way to the sharpness of mercilessly direct expression. In the world of statutes, case law, and legal reasoning, the ability to communicate complex ideas in a simple and effective manner is an exercise in disciplined succinctness. 

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Law School Core Classes as Tatte Desserts

/ Reilly Doak / Leave a comment

Tatte Bakery & Cafe is a Boston staple– with a location less than one mile from the Law School, it’s one of my favorite places to catch up with friends, splurge on a fancy coffee, treat myself to a baked pick-me-up, or do a little bit of reading with a change of scenery.

To give prospective law students an idea of what classes are like and current law students a sweet reprieve from their post-Spring Break deluge of work, I have assigned each legal core class a Tatte pastry that I feel most represents it. If your favorite class didn’t make the list, feel free to add it in the comments!

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Faculty Spotlight: Cheryl Bratt

/ Reilly Doak / 1 Comment

Many of us attend law school to help our communities, whether through policy work, representing marginalized clients, or integrating pro bono work into our practice. However, it’s very easy for our doctrinal classes to feel removed from our ultimate purposes.

As a Law Practice Professor, Professor Bratt teaches students the skills they will use in practice, like conducting legal research, writing predictive memoranda, and drafting motions to a court. Professor Bratt–no surprise to those who know her–goes above and beyond her responsibilities as a Law Practice Professor. Not only is she a thoughtful, caring professor, but she also works with Lawyers Clearinghouse to give 1Ls discrete opportunities to assist marginalized clients with their legal issues. Professor Bratt creates opportunities for students to work with clients in need of legal services. This experience was the highlight of my 1L year, and it made me feel like I had more to offer the world and my new community in Boston.

I sat down with Professor Bratt to discuss the opportunities that lead her to her dream job, what brought her to teach Law Practice at BC Law and to get to know her beyond the classroom.

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Faculty Spotlight: Professor Mary Ann Chirba

/ Jonathan Bertulis-Fernandes / Leave a comment

BC Law Impact Editor’s Note: We pride ourselves at Boston College Law School on our unique community that cultivates an incredible student body with a brilliant faculty. The BC Impact Blog is launching a faculty spotlight Q&A series to highlight the members of our faculty throughout the next year.

Easily one of my favorite 1L classes has been Law Practice. Known as “LP” to all BC Law students, Law Practice focuses on teaching students the practical skills that they will use everyday in their eventual careers as attorneys. Students spend a great deal of time mastering legal writing and research, learning the Bluebook and system of legal citations as well as how to use research tools such as Lexis and Westlaw. Writing their objective office memo (a memo offering an objective analysis of a legal issue for an internal audience) is a rite of passage for BC law students, and was easily one of the hardest and most rewarding experiences of my first semester. Second semester sees a pivot to advocacy skills, with students learning the basics of oral argument and shifting to writing for an external audience such as briefs for courts.

For this week’s blog I sat down with Professor Mary Ann Chirba to learn a bit more about her background and teaching at BC. Beloved by students, Professor Chirba is a full-time member of BC’s Law Practice Faculty as well as teaching other law and undergraduate courses. 

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Prepared for Success

/ Travis Salters / Leave a comment

This past January, I remember thinking to myself that I couldn’t wait to submit my last final exam at the end of May. It was an exhilarating feeling that lasted for a day or so until I received the Writing Competition email with hundreds of pages of materials. I was eager to complete the assignment over the next two weeks, so that I could finally take a breather. I submitted my competition materials, but it was on the same day that my summer internship started. Oh yes, and then grades were released. Then, the window for OCI (on-campus interview) applications were opened. Did I mention the anxiety of class registration for next year in the middle of this?

If this all seems like a lot… it is! Yet, every first-year law student persisted through this process and thrived. Although the past year felt overwhelming for a variety of reasons, we were all able to persevere because Boston College Law School prepared us.

On my first day of my summer internship at the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, I was handed three assignments. One task was writing a memorandum that needed to be submitted five days later. Another task was assisting a supervising attorney by acting as a judge in a moot court as she prepared to argue before the Massachusetts Appeals Court. The other assignment was drafting a motion for an upcoming proceeding. All of this was in the first week.

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