Is that your final answer?

There are times that I worry about losing my skills as a writer. At no time is this fear more pronounced than during finals. During my 4 year stint as an undergrad, I wrote just shy of a bazillion research papers. Seriously, a bazillion. And my dirty little secret is that I liked it...scratch that, I loved it. Oh sure, I was sure to complain about the long hours in the library and the late nights combing a thesaurus in hopes of never having to use the same adjective twice, but when I had a finished paper, smooth and eloquent with just the right touch of sarcastic wit, I relished putting my name on it and handing it in. In my vast experience as a law student, I have written an appellate brief and a legal memo. That's it. And let me tell you, there is no joy in writing a legal memo, especially when the bulk of it is consumed by case citations and repetition repetition repetition of the same contentions and evidence. When finals roll around, I almost get excited about the opportunity to do a little writing...almost. Law school exams are most succinctly described as mental bulimia. Word vomit at its finest. I just took exam 4 of 5 this morning and if actual bulimia trashes your esophagus, it probably safe to say that mental bulimia is doing the same to my brain. I can actually feel the synapses melting into one big short-circuiting mass. Which brings me back to my original fear of becoming a mediocre academic writer for lack of practice and mental reconditioning. This morning as I was frantically heaving the contents of my brain onto paper, racing against the clock to answer four hypotheticals in two hours, I took a moment to go back and reread my answers for coherence and concluded that a reasonably intelligent fourth grader, armed with the Model Code of Professional Responsibility could have written what I did, and probably with fewer spelling errors as well. Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion, Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion, Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion and so on and so forth forever and ever amen. No style, no flair, no spark of imagination needed here. I've been told legal writing is highly technical and concise. I think that's code for boring, simple, and repetitive. I think if the powers that be want to mold "better" attorneys, whatever that is, a college degree should not be a prerequisite to law school admission. After all, they spend the first semester teaching you to forget everything you ever learned up until that point anyway. And now this is really just turning into a rant, so I suppose I'll give it a rest and start studying for my constitutional law exam. After all, I'm just dying to see how many different ways there are to say the exact same thing over and over again.