Screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith spent two weeks at Stanford Law School in 2000 to get a flavor of what campus life is like. Reese Witherspoon spent hundreds of dollars on a bar tab for a group of sorority girls to pick up their lingo and a movie was created. 

The original story is missing a few things from the beloved film including the character of Emmett Richmond (played by Luke Wilson) and Elle actually working hard to get into law school.