A couple weeks ago, I considered the practical applications of the first week of law school. The difference between then and now is like night and day, like a morning with or without coffee or Tom Brady injured or uninjured. In short, the difference between then and now is five weeks, or more importantly, one legal memo.

After the first week, I struggled to identify some of ways that one week of a legal education could translate in the real world. Sure, I had quickly grown accustomed to the Socratic method and had begun to look at every day circumstances through a legal lens. In other words, even a brief time at law school prompted me to "think like a lawyer."

Now, it's a month later and we've taken thinking like a lawyer to the next level, to something more concrete - to writing like a lawyer. For some, writing a memo may have been a logical extension of everything else we've learned over the first five weeks. For others, it may have been an agonizing exercise or a return to the comfortable routine of procrastination. The good news, no matter what your approach to the assignment, is that Memo 1 is now behind us. And I'm sure when we look back on the Memo 1 experience, we'll take away a number of practical lessons.

First, we've had our first experience with TREAT. Based on the conversations I've had and ones I've overheard between classes, we've spent the week thinking constantly about TREAT. We've thought so much about it that we've worked it into conversations as a variety of parts of speech - "I did a TREAT," "So, I TREATed that last night, but I'm not sure about it," etc. Anyway, organization is important to any type of writing and it's especially important when trying to connect complicated rules, facts and circumstances to reach conclusions. Building a foundation for our writing will surely serve us well in the years to come.

There's also the fact that this semester we're learning all about predictive writing. As I was working my way though the memo, I kept reminding myself that objectivity is important, and surely a skill that's in high demand. Though I have to admit I had my doubts about how important objectivity is in the real world when each morning I'd open the paper and read headlines about people shouting down other people over everything from health care to the MTV awards. Still, while objectivity may not be in fashion these days, that doesn't mean we couldn't do with more of it.

On the whole, the first memo was probably a good thing - we applied skills and produced something concrete. We're getting grounded in organization and objectivity, which will serve us well now and when we eventually branch out. So, the good news is that the first memo is down ... though number two is now on deck.