We enter law school with a checklist. Moots. Internships. Publications. Somewhere between the first lecture and the first existential crisis, someone tells us,

“Start publishing early. It builds your CV.”

For students in tier-2 and tier-3 institutions, this advice often precedes any actual training in writing. We are told to chase journals, blogs and op-ed platforms, but are rarely taught how to write for them.

The gap is structural. Legal writing is absent from the curriculum in most law colleges. Where it exists, it is treated as an afterthought, a single credit course, hurriedly taught, rarely practised. Few institutions maintain their own journals or writing forums. The absence of such spaces pushes students prematurely into external competition, pitching to national and international platforms without ever learning the basics of writing for publication.

Students learn to write answers worth five marks since school, not arguments worth publication. The transition from classroom writing to public legal discourse is steep and, for many, entirely self-taught. Legal writing should be mandatory across all law schools, not as an elective but as the foundation of legal training.

The first attempts are mechanical: write, pitch, wait. Silence. Then again. Ghosting. Slowly, the piece may have lost its relevance. Platforms are overburdened, editors are stretched thin and the cycle of submission and rejection becomes a quiet rite of passage. Most Indian law journals, unlike their global counterparts, provide no review, no feedback and no scope for revision. Our ecosystem normalises opacity; the student learns nothing except endurance.

Some pieces, you write, sit awkwardly between academic analysis and journalistic commentary. Too reflective for law reviews, too technical for op-ed pages. These are the essays that teach us the most, not because they get published, but because they force us to confront the limits of genre and audience.

Now, one learns where they can find their voice better: is it through commentary, blogging, or academia? One learns that every piece demands a standpoint: normative, reflective, or critical. Writing becomes not a task but an inquiry into where one truly belongs in the legal discourse. Now we start fearing rejection and start accepting silence.

In this process, something shifts. We begin to understand that writing for publication is not just about expression: it’s about strategy.

The mantra becomes clear: Don’t write first and pitch later. First, choose your platform. Then, write for it. Publication is not about finding space for your thoughts; it’s about shaping thoughts for a space.

Each outlet has its own tone, structure and editorial rhythm. Learning to write is also learning to read, not just cases, but platforms.

At some point, it becomes clear that writing was never meant to be a line on the CV. Those who advised us to publish early were not wrong. Writing is the hidden curriculum of law.

Whether one drafts a contract, a petition or an op-ed, the act demands the same precision of thought and clarity of expression. Legal writing is not about performance; it is about comprehension. One cannot argue well without first learning to write well.

Every discipline within law, advocacy, research, policy and academia rests on the same foundation: the ability to construct an argument that survives scrutiny.

To write is to think in public, to discipline one’s reasoning before exposing it to the world. The page becomes the first court, the editor the first judge and the reader the final arbiter.

Writing, whether legal or general, sharpens that mental rigour which the courtroom later demands. It forces the writer to anticipate counter-arguments, refine ambiguity and locate moral as well as doctrinal coherence. To learn to write is, in essence, to learn to reason. That, not publication count, is what builds a professional.

Every judgment, statute, or policy begins as a piece of writing. In the process of writing, one learns the discipline that the profession demands: precision, patience and the courage to be understood.

The Bar does not need more graduates who can recite provisions; it needs thinkers who can translate principles into persuasion. Somehow, in chasing publication, we cultivate the discipline that defines legal professionalism.

Isha R is a second year law student.