Forty percent of law students participating in an ABA Quick Poll reported that legal research and writing was their most useful first-year course, and 48 percent expected that legal research and writing would prove to be the most useful course throughout the remainder of their law school career.  Student respondents had to choose among the following courses: civil procedure; contracts; criminal law; torts; legal research/writing; constitutional law; and property.  As others have pointed out, a poll with just 172 students isn’t necessarily an adequate sampling of the law student populace.  Nevertheless, it is interesting that legal research and writing fared so well among those who took the poll.