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| Will Corliss '25 |
"If I had to only pick one major to go to law school, it would be the English major."
When senior English major Will Corliss signed up for Professor Karen Graziano’s Legal Writing and Analysis course last spring, he probably wasn’t expecting to then find himself sitting in a courtroom, observing a real trial, that coming summer—but that’s exactly what happened. Will, who is currently applying to law schools for fall 2025, sat down with the Nova English blog to discuss his journey from a prospective bio major to a pre-law, psych and English double major—and how his journey with English contributed to his professional development.
In the spring of his junior year, Will took two undergraduate law-focused classes with Professor Graziano: Law and Modern Literature, and Legal Writing and Analysis.
According to Will, In Law and Modern Literature, “We were reading some classic texts and some modern texts. We started out with an autobiography called One L, which described a Harvard student’s experience in their first year of law school, and it’s a very good teaching point for pre-law students because you really get to learn about law school culture, about how it actually operates, and how it differs from college and any other educational setting you’ve ever been in.” The readings in the class not only touch on law in society, but also prepare students for the lived experience of integrating into the law profession.
But Law and Modern Literature is first and foremost a literature class, one with a focus on the role of law in society, culture, and the life of the individual as seen through the texts: “Other texts weave in how we see law in society. There was the classic Kafka novel The Trial, the famous play Twelve Angry Men… race and gender in law, and how that plays a role.” The class draws on a diverse cross-section of Villanova students: “The class is not exclusive to just English and pre-law students. I was classmates with pre-med students, pre-dental students, engineers, and tech majors.”
Legal Writing and Analysis is a different kind of course, one more focused on developing and applying the unique skills involved in legal writing and research. “In our academic setting,” notes Will, “we’re writing essays and arguing of course, but with legal writing it’s a very different style. It’s a different mentality, and a different way of gathering and using information.”
The class is primarily structured around a large, final project. “You create your own journal article,” says Will, “a legal journal article like one would see in a law review. We spent the bulk of the semester working on it, from the most basic elements, navigating Nexis Uni, which is a legal database for undergraduates. At the course’s end you submit your final, which is a polished version of this journal article, with the very first attempts at legal reasoning and Blue Book citations.”
Students are given a great deal of autonomy in choosing research subjects. “A lot of people would choose topics on the emergence of AI... a few people did education with book banning and censorship, affirmative action in the admissions process,” notes Will. “I chose the growing concerns and issues with artificial turf in the NFL. There has been lots of scrutiny in the past few years concerning non-contact-related injuries outside the nature of play. Even recently, the Eagles game against the Packers in São Paolo, Brazil, was under scrutiny—they played on a patchy field that many players slipped on. This made waves within the players’ union, the NFLPA. What I wanted to do was advocate for all teams across the league to use natural grass over artificial turf. I examined the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement and talked about some provisions in there—some alterations that could be made, some possible solutions.”
As part of the research for his paper, Will conducted two interviews with working lawyers: “I spoke with a lawyer named Brian J. Duff, name partner of a law firm based in Tom’s River and Hamilton, New Jersey. I had never met him; I didn’t know him before I read his journal article from 30 years ago talking about this issue. I reached out to him and talked to him for about an hour about this issue. It helped big time, not only with my paper, but also it turned into a networking and professional development opportunity.
“Over the summer, I was able to go to one of his local offices a few times, and most significantly observe him in a trial he was doing. It was a great and exciting experience for me to have, and I’m so glad that that was able to come about all due to a legal writing project.”
Professor Graziano emphasized the importance of Will’s professionalism and writing skills in being offered the internship opportunity. "After Will shared his final legal journal article with a lawyer he interviewed in the research process, I received an email from the lawyer with a glowing review stating how professional Will was and how outstanding his legal writing was as well. As a result of his professionalism and legal writing skills, Will was offered a professional development opportunity with the lawyer's office.”
As Professor Graziano notes, in praising Will’s initiative, "I have only received an email from an attorney who was interviewed for the course on a few occasions, and while over the years several of my legal writing students have created opportunities like Will's at law firms, it's always notable. It’s rare for undergraduates students to be offered an opportunity at a law firm based on their legal research and writing skills."
Will’s second interview for his paper was with a well-known Villanova professor. “I got to go over to the Villanova Law School and talk to the head of the Sports Law department, Professor Andrew Brandt. He was also formerly the Vice President for the Green Bay Packers. He brought a wealth of knowledge. He had some really great things to say about the issue and the Collective Bargaining Agreement, very different too. Speaking to somebody with an NFL background like that provided a lot of help with thinking of solutions.”
As Will describes it, “It was very cool even to get in that room and talk. That doesn’t happen without that project, the motivation, and the investigatory work that’s involved in it. It was a very formative experience in my academic journey here at Villanova.”
In summary, Will has found the English major to be largely beneficial in his path as a pre-law student. Initially, Will majored in Biology, but ultimately changed course. “I talked to a family friend who’s a lawyer. He had always said, ‘Major in the sciences and minor in English, because law school is so much reading and writing. If you can learn to read and write like that, at high volumes like that, you’ll be very well prepared as an undergraduate for law school.’ So I took that into consideration and thought, hold on, why not major in this instead? And also, in high school, I took AP Lit, I took AP Lang, and I liked them a lot. So it all made sense.”
Will found that the English major dovetailed perfectly with his professional and educational ambitions, from the aforementioned legal internship to valuable experience tutoring at the Writing Center. “I have accomplished much more in my pre-law journey as an English major,” says Will. “Formally, on my transcript, it will say that my primary major is Psychology and my second major is English, but anybody that’s heard me talk about my academic experience would definitely agree that it’s really the other way around. And it’s not a knock on the Psychology major at all, but I’ve always felt more that English was really my primary major. If I had to only pick one major to go to law school, it would be the English major. That’s because the skills are so liquid. Every essay is an argument. You’re crafting arguments and evidence through the texts. You’re reading a lot. You’re writing a lot. You’re becoming a better orator in class discussion. You are constantly sharpening the crucial skills for law school.”
Having gone through his academic and pre-professional experiences over the spring and the summer, Will is now focused on finishing out his senior year and applying to law school. “I spent the summer studying, crafting my personal statement, collecting input and feedback for my resume,” he notes. “As I continue the application process, I’ve always had the mentality of best fit over best school. It reminds me of my senior year of high school again. This whole way, I am just trying to remember that this is a privilege and a blessing to get to this point in the game. It’s not a bad thing—it might be daunting, but it’s not bad at all. It’s quite the opposite. And I am very grateful for the faculty of Villanova’s English department to allow me to tap into my potential.”
