Any legal writer using these exercises will develop a keen understanding of the memo's various components and necessary skills. Using this book, legal writers can practice what they have learned from professors and primary casebooks. All exercises have been tested on law students. Half the exercises have annotated sample answers in the back of the book, so writers can check their work. Each exercise is independent, so students and professors will have little ramp-up time and can get right into the skills practice. The book contains fifty exercises, most of which can be done lightning-round style, taking just fifteen minutes.įor more in-depth practice, the book also contains exercises taking about thirty minutes these take a deeper dive into the material and bring together several different skills. This book provides the practice new legal writers need. ¶ Your final paragraph/sentence should succinctly repeat your Conclusion for this analysis section.To write an effective memo, legal writers must first master a series of distinct and crucial skills: fact selection, narrowing of the specific legal issue, correct rule formulation, and accurate application of law to the client's facts, to name but a few. Typically, they want to know if they can legally do something, or they are worried. If the legal issues are complex, you may even choose to further break up your analysis by subsections. Clients come to attorneys with questions. You will likely have a number of analysis paragraphs, depending on the nature of your legal issue. Next, compare those cases to the facts of your own case. Following your topic sentence, analyze cases that discuss that topic by stating the relevant facts and holdings from those cases. When possible, start each paragraph with a topic sentence. ¶ ¶ - Following your introductory paragraph comes your first analysis paragraph, where you will analyze the rule/issue identified in your previous paragraph by comparing case law facts and holdings to your facts. ¶ 1 - Your first sentence should clearly state the applicable Rule (or sub-rule) (I.e., "To prevail on her claim, the plaintiff must first prove that the defendant owed her a duty of care.") Your next sentence(s) should provide an Explanation of the Rule, which serves as a road map to your reader by informing your reader of the topics that you are going to address in the remainder of your analysis section. The defendant owed the plaintiff a duty to transport her to school in a reasonably safe manner. Preferably, the heading will be your Conclusion to that issue, phrased as a complete sentence. The headings of your sections should correspond to the element of the rule that you will be analyzing within that section. For example, if you are analyzing a tort, you might break your discussion into three sections: (1) whether the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty, (2) whether the defendant breached that duty, and (3) whether the plaintiff suffered any damages. Typically, you will organize your discussion of the legal rule into subsections that correspond to the elements of the legal rule. Legal Memorandum Format Sample On the following pages is a legal memorandum formatted the way your memos in this classshould be formatted. An introductory or "umbrella" paragraph(s) is a helpful way to define the legal rule(s) that you will be analyzing.
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