I’ll push back a bit on your point of dissent. I started reading Supreme Court opinions in middle school and haven’t stopped since. While that may have been useful for me when I eventually attended law school, I think it’s also a great way to wrap your head around how the law functions. It also gives a glimpse into how the judiciary actually operates versus what people read in the news. I start to twitch every June because I know the press is going to butcher whatever comes out of the Court. It seems even worse with Circuit Courts of Appeals decisions. From a general public policy perspective, being able to differentiate between what a judge actually wrote versus what a journalist cut and paste from a partisan group’s press release is essential, in my opinion, for anyone to be a conscientious person in the US and elsewhere (and that cuts in every direction as far as political leanings go).
Back to the practical side, the habit is also an opportunity to get insights into particular fields of legal practice that may interest someone considering law school (or annihilate any interest therein). Finally, depending on the area of law under review, appellate decisions can also make it clear to prospective law students and lawyers how procedure inundates every facet of legal practice.
Oh, I definitely agree there are good reasons to read unedited opinions—if nothing else, they’re great reads a lot of the time! But I think you’ll get a good number of false negatives if you use that as a test for whether you’ll enjoy the reading in law school. Anyone who enjoys reading unedited opinions will probably enjoy the reading in law school. But not everyone who doesn’t enjoy them won’t.
I’ll push back a bit on your point of dissent. I started reading Supreme Court opinions in middle school and haven’t stopped since. While that may have been useful for me when I eventually attended law school, I think it’s also a great way to wrap your head around how the law functions. It also gives a glimpse into how the judiciary actually operates versus what people read in the news. I start to twitch every June because I know the press is going to butcher whatever comes out of the Court. It seems even worse with Circuit Courts of Appeals decisions. From a general public policy perspective, being able to differentiate between what a judge actually wrote versus what a journalist cut and paste from a partisan group’s press release is essential, in my opinion, for anyone to be a conscientious person in the US and elsewhere (and that cuts in every direction as far as political leanings go).
Back to the practical side, the habit is also an opportunity to get insights into particular fields of legal practice that may interest someone considering law school (or annihilate any interest therein). Finally, depending on the area of law under review, appellate decisions can also make it clear to prospective law students and lawyers how procedure inundates every facet of legal practice.
Oh, I definitely agree there are good reasons to read unedited opinions—if nothing else, they’re great reads a lot of the time! But I think you’ll get a good number of false negatives if you use that as a test for whether you’ll enjoy the reading in law school. Anyone who enjoys reading unedited opinions will probably enjoy the reading in law school. But not everyone who doesn’t enjoy them won’t.