By: Adam Eckart

Law school courses geared towards transactional attorneys have long centered on contract drafting. Yet, students preparing for transactional practice today will not be prepared to enter practice unless transactional skills classes and legal writing classes help prepare students for the variety of skills that are required of today’s transactional attorney.

Today’s transactional attorneys must be well-versed in a variety of skills: not just contract drafting, but also how to use artificial intelligence in practice; navigate and work with regulatory agencies; negotiate and collaborate with counter parties; make effective oral presentations; and draft more sophisticated legal documents, including but not limited to knowing and utilizing storytelling and narrative techniques in contracts.

There are a variety of ways that law schools can help prepare transactional attorneys for the skills they need in practice. First year legal writing courses can introduce students to a variety of skills needed for transactional practice, such as contract drafting (including through the use of AI) and using oral advocacy skills in transactional settings. Upper level courses, such as those specifically focused on transactional skills, can teach these basic skills in more depth, and can also teach additional skills, including writing with narrative, negotiating, and working with regulatory practices. Although the list of skills could be never-ending, five primary skills are important for transactional attorneys, and should be developed in law schools:

1. Artificial intelligence (“AI”) comptency. An increasingly complex and ever-changing area, students must know how AI can be ethically and responsibly implemented in practice. By introducing students to a variety of AI tools and concepts, students gain important understanding of how to use AI properly and what pitfalls may be presented when using AI incorrectly. In my classes, students have the opportunity to test drive several AI and other tech-based tools so that they can gain important practice in using these tools and can understand the risks involved in using such tools.

 

2. Storytelling. Many litigators are thought of as storytellers — weaving together a narrative of a case in front of a judge or jury. But transactional attorneys can be storytellers as well. As discussed in a prior blog post, transactional attorneys can use storytelling and narrative techniques in contracts and other agreements to 1) ensure that the agreements capture the spirit of the parties’ motives and the spirit of the deal, and 2) increase the likelihood that any disagreement about the terms of the agreement is decided in a favorable way to the client. By teaching students to practice storytelling techniques in the drafting of agreements throughout the semester, students are more likely to be able to integrate this important skill in practice. In my classes, students have the opportunity to learn about storytelling and to draft sections of an agreement with narrative techniques.

 

3. Regulatory advice. With state and federal regulations and authority increasing in many ways over the last few decades, transactional attorneys must be familiar with regulatory structures and related advice in order to properly advise clients. There are a number of regulatory regimes that impact business clients, including securities, employment, antitrust, environmental, tax, and others. By introducing students to a variety of regulatory regimes that impact business client or transactions, students have the opportunity to gain a broad sense of regulatory practice and learn how to issue spot such deal particularities. In my classes, students have the opportunity to spot regulatory issues and gain practice writing to and preparing oral presentations to regulators, just as many attorneys do every day.

 

4. Negotiation and collaboration. Every attorney – whether transactional or not — needs to know the importance of negotiation and collaboration. While not every attorney will work on high-profile business deals in their careers, attorneys must negotiate due dates, deliverables, and requirements. In addition, attorneys must recognize that collaboration with peers (and opposing counsel) is a requirement in many situations, even if opposing counsel has divergent goals. Working in teams, students in my class have the opportunity to negotiate an agreement with the other side and follow that negotiation with a collaborative documentation of the deal with the other side.
5. Oral advocacy. Finally, all lawyers must be comfortable relating advice, research, or analysis orally. While oral advocacy is often viewed in the context of a courtroom, lawyers must advocate for clients in boardrooms, in front or regulators, or even on the phone with opposing counsel or another party. In my class, students have the opportunity to present advocacy to a regulator on a regulatory issue and to the company’s shareholders on a potential acquisition.

By gaining a variety of important transactions skills in law schools, students are more likely to be prepared for practice and are better situated to advise and represent clients in the business world.

Adam Eckart is an Associate Professor of Legal Writing at Suffolk University Law School. Before joining Suffolk, Professor Eckart practiced at Ropes & Gray LLP as an associate in the antitrust mergers and acquisitions practice and taught in the Lawyering Program at Boston University Law School.