@andrew @law Interesting. It might depend on what type of writing you're contemplating and for which "publics."

What kind of writings are you contemplating here?

@andrew
I'm going to depart from some of the earlier commenters and suggest that legal writing for public consumption isn't as important for lawyers, but is very important for judges, clerks, & journalists.

You're always writing for your intended audience. Most litigators will want to focus their briefs on persuading a trained jurist, and most transactional lawyers won't care about public consumption at all. But judges & their staff have a broader duty to make their writing accessible IMO.

@andrew @law

As a journalist, I would say this is vitally important. Legal writing often tends to be defensive writing, which makes it difficult for people outside the discipline to translate, and therefore accept as truthful. Scientists are trying to do the same. I collaborated with a scientist to write a book for general audiences, meaningful work for both of us. I learned how to be both precise and clear, and she learned to trust how to say scientific truths in plain language.

@andrew @law Great thread - Agree w/ what folks are saying, and add that, as an undergrad, I took both "Physics for Poets" and "Poetry for Physicists" (think, "Rocks for Jocks" but we were expected to learn stuff) in order to meet my school's distribution req's

Both were enlightening & I learned skills in them that I continue to use almost daily - there's a real art to explaining something that one knows a great deal about, to someone who doesn't

@andrew I was hoping for more of a civics course: Reading Legal Writing for Layfolk. Our fellow voters are so shockingly ignorant of what the law is, how it works, and what are its implications in a free society.

Although I will say that a journalism school course on legal analysis would go a long way towards improving the coverage (and ideally, the popular understanding) of the function of the law in civil society.

@andrew

I'd definitely plump for a law course. All highly technical qualifications should come with a compulsory module on disseminating information to non-field persons.

Not too quickly though, as I've made my career from occupying that niche 😅

@andrew

I feel like maybe there's distinct classes for, like, communicating law to clients vs. journalistic legal writing.

In my experience all the legal memo writing stuff I learned in law school has been only intermittently relevant but "how to write an email advising a client" or "how to write an email a busy partner can skim and advise a client from their phone" is a skill I use daily.