Brenna Findley is explaining the difference between “vague” and “ambiguous” to her students at the University of Iowa College of Law. It might seem clear what those words mean, she tells them, but like so many other words, they mean subtly different things when applied to the law.

“Vague,” she explains, means a law is worded broadly; “ambiguous” means the words can have multiple meanings and is open to interpretation, possibly creating more and larger loopholes.

It’s just one of the points of insider knowledge students learned in the Legislation class she co-taught this spring with Jim Leach in the law school. The two of have plenty of knowledge to share—Findley is a former Capitol Hill staff member in D.C. who now works as the chief legal counsel to Gov. Terry Branstad (she commuted from Des Moines every Wednesday evening to teach), and Leach spent 30 years representing Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives before joining the law school faculty last fall.

This spring, they shared with students the wisdom gained from those decades of service to show how laws are made and interpreted, whether that’s through the legislative process, administrative rulemaking, or court interpretation. The course also focused on contributions lawyers can make to public service and lawmaking, and how understanding the process will help them better represent their clients.

“Lawyers are going to be community leaders, and it’s important for them to know how society works and how the lawmaking process works,” Leach says. “Clients will have disputes with government entities, and lawyers need to know how those entities work to effectively represent their clients.”

In class, the students learned about the basics of the law, the role that political parties play in the legislative process, administrative law, budgets, and campaign finance. They’ve debated whether legislative history is a legitimate method to interpret a law, and discussed the importance of syntax in writing a law.

To drive home the last point, Findley shows the text of a section of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the landmark bill that made it illegal to pay workers differently based on gender. The section is a single run-on sentence with ambiguous modifiers on a subject, while Leach suggests a straight-forward approach with fewer modifiers might have been more suitable.

But Findley says it’s quite possible the drafters meant for it to be worded that way. It might have been to secure yes votes from members who would have voted against it without those modifiers. Or members may have wanted to leave room for re-interpretation by future generations depending on how economic, social, and cultural circumstances may have changed.

Students in the class say the combined experience of Findley and Leach provide an understanding of legislative bodies that will help them read the laws they’ll have to interpret in their work as attorneys.

“They show us the behind closed doors process of how laws are made at both the state and federal level that we don’t often get to see, and it’s fascinating,” says Paul Wilson, a second year law student from Clarinda who has worked in politics in the past and doesn’t rule out getting involved again in the future.

Elle Kaiser, a second year student from Mason City, has no interest in a political career, but wanted to learn more about the legislative process and the workings of government to help her be a better lawyer.

“So often, an attorney has to interact with government bodies, so it’s good to learn how to break down statutes to understand them better and see how they interact at the state and federal level,” she says.