At the Law School, students have learned how to master the art of finding precedent and crafting legal arguments in a program that has been in place for over half a century. At Chicago, legal writing is taught by six full-time faculty members called Bigelow Teaching Fellows. The Bigelow Fellows are often young lawyers who are making the transition from private practice to law teaching. Others want to punctuate a career as a practicing lawyer with a year in the academy. Some of the most successful Bigelow Fellows have been lawyers from other common law jurisdictions such as Great Britain who are drawn by the chance to spend a year at the Law School.
Legal writing consumes a great deal of time in the first year.
Ten percent of the course credits in the first year is assigned to the work in the Bigelow Program and it is graded just like any other course in the Law School. The first two assignments in the fall are closed memoranda in which students are given the law and asked to apply it. This initial stage of the program is designed to develop legal analysis and legalwriting skills. In the Winter Quarter, students are introduced to legal research through several presentations by law librarians. Following these exercises is the Open Memorandum.