Assignments
and Student Writing:
Real Life Law Essay
Recommended
length: 1400 words
Write an essay based on an interview with someone who is or was involved
in the legal profession.
Step One: the Interview(s)
Interview someone you know (or be assertive, and interview someone whose
name a friend or family member gives you) about a legal proceeding he
or she was involved in--a friend whose parents litigated a custody or
visitation matter, a relative who fought a parking ticket, or a similar
legal controversy. The interviewee may remain anonymous for privacy
reasons if it's a sensitive issue.
Or, interview someone who works in the legal system, or who is in a
quasi legal system (for example, the affirmative action officer of a
corporation or agency; the person in a school, company or other institution
who handles complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace or in the
school; the chief justice of the Wellesley College's General Judiciary
system.
Ask you subject as many questions as time permits, about her job, why she sought this position, and what the job entails. What particular situations or cases did your subject find most interesting, and which most disturbing? Does your subject think that the system brings about justice? That it provides due process? Try to get your subject to recount as many specific examples as possible, and to tell stores about individual cases she has been involved in.
Step Two: the Essay
Write an essay using the facts you gathered in your interview, to teach
your readers something about the legal system you've chosen to examine.
Do not transcribe the interview, but do quote from it when you think
this would be effective.
Next, reflect on the information you gathered and develop a viewpoint
or thesis about the legal system that you researched. Tell your audience
what your analysis of this particular proceeding is, or what your thesis
is about the subject's work and its effectiveness. Leave your reader
with a clear idea of what you think of the subject's work, the value
of her work, whether the work furthers any legal purpose, whether it
promotes justice and fairness, or not.
You may most definitely use the first person pronoun in this essay,
although try to do so sparingly.
You need not do any research for this essay beyond the primary research
of the interview.
I would like to publish some of your essays in my Webpages at the end
of this semester. As you write and particularly as you make final revisions,
think about how an audience outside Wellesley would react to your essay.