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Legal Writing As A Kind Of Philosophy, Joel R. Cornwell

Mercer Law Review

Post-structuralist theories of textual meaning have been integrated into legal education in various ways, notably through the influence of the Critical Legal Studies movement. Ironically, legal writing courses, the portion of the first-year curriculum ostensibly allotted to techniques of dissecting and manipulating language, have largely ignored the insights of analytical philosophy and literary deconstruction indirectly appropriated in other courses. The standard models remain algorithmic, reinforcing a conservative view of writing as an applied lexigraphic skill, essentially void of the substance taught in nonwriting courses. This conceptual disjunction between writing and thought engenders and feeds the attitude that legal writing courses …