This section I thought was really interesting. Over the summer we dove into legal realism and how it evolved and how it is present in today's courts. I think this section mainly caught my eye because seeing previous material tie in is always fun. I find the theory itself very interesting in its applicability. I can't say that I am a complete legal realist or completely against it, but I think finding its presence in the law is going to be an ongoing task for our courts and it is interesting to see how it will continue to evolve.

This section caught my eye on my first read. It has a common theme that has been pushed throughout this first semester especially. Having analogous cases is not only common, but also extremely helpful as they help to understand court's potential reasoning in your set of facts in front of you. I did think it was interesting that the author said the lawyer is always right and always wrong. I'm still chewing on this and what this means and if any of my classmates have any clarity on that, I'd love to hear it.

The first sentence of this really caught my eye from the beginning. Honestly, it took more than one times of re-reading the paragraph to put it together. I find the "prophets-for-hire" comment very interesting. I would be interested in other peoples' interpretations of that phrase. In my head, I understand it as lawyers, obviously for hire since they have to be paid, "prophesize" the law through the analogies that they use to apply case law to the case in front of them. However, I think this could be interpreted in many different ways. I also liked the comment about law librarians being the only ones expected to know all of the law. My sympathies to Professor Charles if this is true. Lastly, the "horse like mine" comment was very well placed and written. I have found myself feeling similarly while researching case law, finding similar cases, but still searching for a case that is explicitly like mine. I thought it was a great analogy, which makes sense because the author is explaining the prevalence of analogies in close proximity to this statement.

I found this comment to be interesting not necessarily because of substance, but because I find myself relating to it. Granted, I have very limited legal research experience, only a couple of months, but I have found that in what I have done I am much more efficient when I look at annotated sources. I have found it helps me not only figure out where to look, but also just gives me a much stronger grasp on the concept. I have also found that I find some things I thought I knew were wrong or even just very surface level. It has helped lead me to other questions and points of law that are useful in my research, but I wouldn't have found or navigated otherwise.

I found this point to be particularly interesting because it involves changing the oath. Again, I would find it interesting how this would be executed. Personally, I foresee it being a logistical nightmare. Changing the oath would be challenging, doing so in each state would be challenging, but doing so in a way that "clarifies that effective written communication is required" would require some extremely effective legal writing. Beyond just changing the oath, finding the correct wording would be very difficult. I imagine that it would require specific definitions of the word "effective" to demonstrate the standards that would be implemented. Or would that not be the case? Would the word "effective" be left vaguely defined as to cover as much as possible when legal writing is being reviewed in light of the "new oath"? Personally, I think it would need definition, however, I would not want to be the one tasked with doing so. Additionally, I am not sure if I see the oath changing to clarify that written communication is required and as a result, it is more likely that a number of credits for legal writing would be implemented. I agree with the author that legal writing is important and as my time in law school continues, I see the need for it within our legal system through how some court opinions are delivered. I do not, however, know how proposals like the author suggests would be executed efficiently and effectively.