Writing as a Stepping Stone Back to Law
During the past 20 years, Julie Manning has been raising three kids, and at one point had put her full-time law career on pause. It was during this career step-back she began to contemplate how her life experiences and her strong legal writing skills could transform into creative writing, but she didn’t know where to begin.
Growing up, Julie remembers reading as being an important part of her childhood.
“My mother took my sister and me to the library regularly, and I always wanted to check out more books than the limit my mother set,” she recalls. “I enjoyed writing poetry starting in elementary school. Although I had excelled in school, I consistently lacked confidence in my writing abilities.”
In 2022, Julie would finally take a step toward gaining confidence with our Certificate Program in Creative Writing.
Legal Writing Doesn’t Have to Be Boring Writing
Julie attended undergrad for a few years at UC Berkeley—a place she fell in love with while walking through the campus as a teen—and later earned her J.D. from University of Illinois in 1996.
After graduating from law school, Julie served as a judicial law clerk for the U.S. District Court for The Honorable James B. Zagel, under whom an unexpected boost to the creative side of her writing skills began to emerge.
“In my last year of law school, one of my professors—Professor Freyfogle—nominated me for the legal writing award given to my class,” Julie says.
“At the awards ceremony, he said, ‘Excellent writing is the product of excellent thinking.’ This stuck with me. By then, I had developed very strong legal writing skills, which I continued to use as a law clerk writing opinions for Judge Zagel. Judge Zagel had written a novel and possessed a great appreciation for creative writing, which he modeled for me and allowed me to include in written court opinions.”
While raising her children, Julie didn’t maintain a full-time law career but did hold board roles in various organizations. “I started writing creatively after an emotionally fraught incident at—of all things—a women’s charity luncheon!” she relates.
“I continued writing short stories after jarring life experiences—getting in trouble for accidentally trespassing and neighborly disputes, for example. I enjoyed this as a way to work through my thoughts and feelings in these situations. But I still felt like I was in the dark about methods and rules for creative writing,” she remembers. “I was grasping and desired formal training.”
Why Our Creative Writing Certificate
“I was seeking to learn the rules and structure surrounding creative writing,” Julie tells me. “I chose the UC Berkeley Extension program because the courses sounded interesting and fit my schedule, and I liked the idea of earning a certificate from my abandoned love—UC Berkeley.”
Julie’s interests ranged from courses in poetry, writing fiction and American fiction, to screenplays, essay writing and the craft of reading.
“I gained valuable insight and skills in every course, which impacted my writing and improved my confidence,” she affirms.
“Poetry Workshop with Caroline Goodwin—a generous and wonderful instructor—was magical, and it was useful to learn about infusing writing with meaning and sound. Another course instructor commented about the importance of interiority in characters, which I found very enlightening.
“I took two courses from Katie Flynn, an incredible instructor who taught me so much about how to create a story piece by piece, how to invoke creativity and allow the story to take on a life of its own,” Julie lauds. “She also fostered wonderful in-class relationships.
“To my surprise, I came to learn that what you leave out in writing can be as important as what you include.”
The variety of online formats also allowed for Julie to complete our certificate program on her own timeline and schedule.
“I enjoyed the various formats offered, including online with a weekly meeting, with class and instructor interaction online, and online self-paced,” she says. “I got to know some students who took several of the same courses as me and enjoyed the interactions with the instructors. Some of us have stayed in touch beyond the courses.”
Putting Creative Writing to Work in Law
Since finishing the writing certificate program, Julie has returned to work as a full-time corporate attorney for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. In addition to applying her writing skills to her legal work, she sees the program as a whole as beneficial.
“Engaging in and completing the certificate program helped me realize that I remained capable of setting goals, working hard and then achieving them,” Julie affirms. “This is pertinent to my personal life and life as a lawyer. After being primarily out of the work force for years, the writing program was a stepping stone back to work.
“Also, in the legal profession, excellent writing is always valued, and I use creative writing skills to bolster my daily work interactions, which are largely written communications.”
“I came to learn that what you leave out in writing can be as important as what you include.”
Along with the program helping Julie achieve her “primary goals by gaining an understanding of the rules and structure underlying creative writing and earning a certificate from UC Berkeley,” she adds, “I also learned that it is okay or even good to break the rules sometimes”—creatively speaking.
Although Julie’s professional work is not in a typical writing or editorial role, she still benefited from earning a writing certificate.
“I can see myself taking more courses as part of lifelong learning,” she says. “These courses would benefit anyone who enjoys reading and understanding books and writings on different levels, including the author’s intentions and the context of writing, as well as any person who enjoys being part of a literary community with engaging instructors and students.
“During the program, I wrote numerous pieces with which I am very pleased and love re-reading, creating a foundation of work for me to build upon that I can return to at any time.”
Courses Julie Completed
The Craft of Reading
Poetry Workshop
The Craft of Writing
Writing Skills Workshop
Screenwriting: The Art of Visual Storytelling
Introduction to Writing Fiction
American Fiction
Re-envisioning the Past Through Historical Fiction
