A student's point of view - group 1 legal writing and analysis course with DLA Piper in Zambia

Pictured above: Idah Nzaliis a student who participated in the New Perimeter University of Zambia School of Law legal education project.  We welcome her guest blog post about her student experiences.

The legal writing and analysis course with DLA Piper has been the most exciting experience this week for group one members. Worth noting from the onset is the fact that the instructors in this course are indeed experts. Right from day one, they made us their “friends” and made us feel like we are already lawyers. This is the best feeling that very law student would like to have. The interaction between the instructors and ourselves has been very good and this has made it very easy for us to understand and appreciate this course. The truth is that at the end of this course, each one of us will be an excellent legal writer and analyst ready to work in any law firm or legal department.

Nonetheless, the difference in terms of culture and exposure cannot be ignored. A reasonable amount of time is spent admiring the skills and competence of our instructors, not to say that we are intimidated, but actually motivated. We have learned so much from them, starting from their personal conduct and discipline to the acceptable ethics of lawyers generally. In terms of culture (on a light note), an interesting thing that puzzles one instructor, Anthony Ashton, is that no one walks out of the classroom after each session until he shouts “get out!” Well, our culture demands that no student walks out of class until the instructor does. And one thing that definitely shocks the other instructor, Nikki Scoble, is the high number of questions she gets concerning her being a “senior, young and female” lawyer.

Although legal writing and use of language are the most important tools every lawyer must possess, several lawyers around the world are paying huge debts for lack of these tools. The legal writing and analysis course is pertinent and comes timely when the pass rates for law students both in Universities and at ZIALE have tremendously reduced, and the legal system has been affected as a result. Special thanks to DLA Piper and its partners; Chibesa Kunda and Company and Stanbic Bank for their initiative to equip us with these tools without which we can never be good lawyers. Special thank s also go to the University of Zambia, School of Law for hosting this workshop. 

The views and opinions expressed by our guest blogger are not endorsements or opinions of New Perimeter or DLA Piper.