How to Write a Student Paper

1. Pick a topic

Note that there is a distinction between a topic and a thesis. A topic is something you are
interested in and would like to write about. A thesis is the argument you are making. You
will usually have a topic well before you have a thesis.
Examples of topics: racial disparities in educational attainment or race discrimination
in the sharing economy.
Examples of theses: racial disparities in educational attainment result from excessive
discipline of students of color or race discrimination in the sharing economy results
from the way online platforms are designed.
I am happy to meet to discuss topics. It is better to meet with me earlier to avoid
investing time in a bad topic.

2. Check for preemption

People have different views about preemption. My view is more minimalist than many of
my colleagues. When I am deciding whether something I want to write is preempted, I
ask whether someone already published a paper arguing exactly the same thing I want to
argue and whether they used the same methodology I want to use and whether their paper
is better than mine will be. The answer tends to be no. For your first student paper, you
probably wish to take a more expansive view of what is preempted.
If you want to use a methodology no one else has used before, then your paper is
probably not preempted. For example, my second paper as a student was about privilege
for attorneys who represent government entities. At the time, there were seven or eight
papers on the topic, and I thought all but two were not very good or did not make
arguments similar to the one I wanted to make. More importantly, though, I wanted to use
a different methodology for my paper. All the other articles involved doctrinal analysis. I
discussed the existing cases, but also interviewed thirty attorneys who represented
government clients and asked them how they thought about the privilege in the context of
their clients. That is a novel contribution even though my conclusion was similar to the
conclusion some other people drew.

3. Identify and read the relevant literature

I suggest that you start by running very broad title searches on Westlaw and gradually
narrowing your focus. Keep track of what you find, but dont spend more than five
minutes reading the introduction of each article.
Your initial goal is to find the center of the universe. Usually there will be 3-5 articles
that you keep finding over and over and that everyone else is citing. You should identify
them and read them first.
Once you have identified the primary articles, look through the footnotes. You want to
know and read everything that these authors know and have read.
You should also look through the list of every article that has cited the primary article and
determine (often simply from the title) whether it is a useful article for your paper.

Dont limit your searching to Westlaw and Lexis. For example, you should always run
google searches related to your topic; there may be interesting recent developments that
have not yet made it into the law review literature. If your topic has a sociological
dimension, you should look in relevant databases on HeinOnline. The librarians can help
you figure out which databases you should use.

4. Organize

Different people prefer different methods of organization. The most important thing is to
find something that works for you.
I typically create a massive document with the name and citation of each article properly
Bluebooked and a one or two sentence statement of thesis. Then I cut and paste in quotes
from the article that I think are important and note the page numbers. If you take the time
to Bluebook the article citation, then you can cut and paste it into every footnote, which
will save you a lot of time
I start my notes for each article on a new page so that when I print it out it will be a nicely
organized stack of paper that I can put in a binder.
I create a brain dump at the end for thoughts I may have while Im organizing.

5. Outline

There are innumerable ways to organize a paper effectively.

One simple format that can work well is as follows:
o Introduction
o Part I: factual background on the issue you are addressing
o Part II: literature and/or case law survey
o Part III: your conclusion about the issue or solution to the problem
o Part IV: anticipate objections and explain why theyre wrong
For your first paper, I suggest that you spend a lot of time on the outline and include
footnotes for each proposition. This will allow you to convert the outline into the paper
more easily. Make sure to submit the outline to me by the deadline so that I can give you
feedback.

6. Write the draft

For your first paper, its important not to start writing too early.
If you spend more time outlining you will be happier in the end because the paper will
write much more quickly
As you write, you will probably find that you have to do some additional research. This is
normal, and you should budget time in the writing process for it.

7. Stay motivated

Writing efficiently is one of the most important skills you can develop in law school.
I find that it helps to make a timeline with small goals. Sometimes when Im working on
a big project I will write out a small goal for every day for the month ahead.

It helps me stay on task to pretend Im a reporter on deadline. I will give myself

assignments, like your editor needs you to finish the summary of the case law by 2pm.
Then I turn off all my electronics and focus only on that task until my deadline.
When I feel unmotivated, I give myself incentives for finishing a section. My incentives
usually involve food and/or online shopping. You each know best what works for you.
I also like to use accountability partners. Sometimes when one of my colleagues is also
working on a paper, we will email each other a goal at the beginning of the day, and then
email each other at the end of the day to confirm that we completed the goal. Pick a
partner who really will hold you accountable. You want someone who is going to hit their
goals and make you feel bad if you dont hit yours, not someone who will be fun to
commiserate with at the end of the day when neither of you got your work done.
To minimize start-up time, whenever I stop working I write down the next thing I plan to
do, and start there the next time I work on the paper.

8. Footnotes

If you took my suggestion in step 4 the Bluebooking should go fairly quickly.

The main point is you dont need to make them perfect as you go. I usually do
Bluebooking at the very endliterally the last thing before I send the article off.
Dont put in the ids too soon.

9. Seek input

You should seek input from people both inside and outside the class. Ideally, you should
seek input from both lawyers and non-lawyers.
Input can, but does not necessarily, mean reading the draft or part of the draft and
offering feedback. I recommend that you have at least two other people in the class read
your draft, at least two other people who are not in the class but are knowledgeable about
the topic, and one person who knows nothing about the topic.
When you seek input you will get a lot of advice. Dont feel that you have to take all of it.
When I was a student I took about 50% of the advice I got. Now it is more like 30%.
Also, in many cases there are ways of addressing a concern that motivates a piece of
advice without actually taking the advice. For example, if someone says that you should
talk about X in your paper, rather than talking about X one possibility is to add a footnote
explaining why X is beyond the scope of your project.
This is all in addition to submitting the draft to me for feedback by the deadline.

10. Presentation

Before you turn the paper in, make it look nice by adding a table of contents, headings,
and nice formatting.
I have a standard law review template that I will make available to you.