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Quick legal writing thread that applies to lawyerly development more broadly:
When you're a young lawyer, you will try to write well only to realize you've failed.
When you're a young lawyer, you will try to write well only to realize you've failed.
You'll find your ideas aren't as brilliant as @SEHarringtonDC's, your words not as lucid and crisply stated as @KannonShanmugam's, nor as lively and memorable as Miguel Estrada's.
And you'll feel bad.
And you'll feel bad.
That's the way of things. But I'm here to tell you that you've gained a key insight!
You can see the difference between bad and good! And that enables you to strive toward the good and away from the bad.
You think that is no insight. You think that everyone can tell. But you're wrong.
Plus -- and here is the real secret -- you can know that it is worth the effort. You can know that striving to be better is not hopeless. That it will make you better. How can you know?
You can know because I am telling you. I was a crappy legal writer. Like really crappy. But I studied great legal writers. I tried to figure out why their stuff was good. I unpacked it.
It made me better. I found, over time, that my stuff started looking better. Eventually even garnered some praise.
That took a lot of work -- a lot of unpacking of others' stuff. A *ton* of unhappiness with the crappiness of my own product. And a liquid-butt-ton of trying to make it better.
The improvement came gradually, then suddenly, and then I acquired confidence. Now writing is *much* easier. It just comes naturally. I write down the initial version of the words, and of course, that initial draft sucks as it always does, but I know it will get better.
And that knowing -- wow -- what a difference it makes.
What I'm saying is it is worth the effort. What I'm saying is you can figure it out. And all that comes out of the initial realization that you suck.
So give yourself permission to suck. Tap out that crappy draft. Then do it again. It will get better. It always does. I promise.
