I have never met an attorney who did not believe that he was perfectly capable of drafting legislation. This confidence may come from a mastery of the case law governing the subject matter of the ­proposed legislation. Or perhaps it derives from the attorney's previous struggles with the ambiguities of a statutory scheme in the course of representing a client. Maybe it is simply because as lawyers we are trained from our earliest days in law school how to read, interpret and apply statutes to the most twisted set of facts our professors could come up with. Whatever the reason, we lawyers are a confident bunch when it comes to legislative drafting.

Is that confidence warranted? In a certain respect, it is. When our corporate clients or their trade associations come to us for help with drafting a legislative fix, it is often for good reason. Lawyers who have developed a certain subject matter ­expertise after years of practice are invaluable in the ­drafting process not only for the reasons stated above, but also because we are ­generally good at predicting the future of a new ­statute when it is applied in the courts.

However, this strength is also our ­weakness. Our ability to predict how a statute will be applied in the future often leaves us blind to the formidable challenge at hand, to draft legislation that actually has a chance to make its way through the General Assembly and earn the governor's signature. To accomplish this, we need a better understanding of the legislative process.