Craft concise and compelling communication.

Judges, law firm recruiters, and scholarly editors agree that graduates of Iowa Law are extremely skilled when it comes to writing. One reason for this is that all Iowa Law students complete Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research during their first year. This small section writing course provides personalized instruction that refines legal writing skills. In their second and third years, students continue writing and gain real-world communication experience by drafting briefs for clinic clients or writing seminar papers on emerging legal topics. 

Iowa Law students are also supported by the Writing and Academic Success Center, the first writing center of any kind to be housed exclusively within a law school. Here, peer tutors meet with first- through third-year students on course assignments, journal articles, and writing samples, providing feedback on organization, clarity, style, citation, and grammar.

Iowa Law is also the only school in the country with multiple first-place finishers in the Sports Lawyers Association annual law-student writing competition. Meanwhile, the college’s Journal of Corporation Law is ranked second among corporate law journals, and a study by Washington & Lee University ranks the Iowa Law Review as the ninth most popular journal for overall citations and the third most popular journal for case citations over the past seven years.

Many Iowa Law students say the writing program was a major influence in their decision to come to the University of Iowa. Strong writing skills are essential in the legal profession, and at Iowa Law, students learn how to craft concise and compelling communication to further their professional success.