Legal
Writing Class Notes
About working on journals
You
do the writing competition. You write a
short paper about a legal topic plus a short editing assignment. Then you write a note. Do the competition! Do it!
Don’t not do it!
The
papers aren’t done being graded yet. We’ll
get them before Spring Break.
About writing the brief
We
weren’t assigned the Chapter that describes what goes into a brief. But we’ll look now.
We’re
doing a trial-level brief, not an appellate brief.
Follow
the form for the brief that you’ll find in the back of the book. Check out the sample caption! In the sample brief, there’s an introduction,
statement of facts, argument with headings, and then a conclusion.
Let’s
do some exercises designed to have us think about how to transform the office
memo into a brief. What’s the difference
between proposing a persuasive question as opposed to a more objective question? We weren’t assigned the material on
formulating a favorable rule. We do need to draft a persuasive work,
though. We have to take the rule we’ve
drafted and think about it from the client’s perspective. What questions will we ask?
We’ll
talk about headings for discussion and then think about what kind of arguments
we’ll make given a set of questions.
Exercise 3, pp. 299-300
We’re
given a rule and we should start by outlining that rule. Then we apply the rule to the facts of the
problem.
Given
the rule and the facts, how do I fashion the headings if I’m writing the brief
for one of the parties? How do I pose
the question?
We
will do the headings as if we were the counsel for Trayburn. We want to spin things in his favor.
Exercise 3, p. 326
We’re
going to do headings for the Lupinos and the Carillos. We’re
going to draft headings.
Okay,
we did it and played with the overhead projector thingy!
One
more thing…
Exercise 4, p. 344
The
general question is: “Did the tenant vacate the premises within a reasonable
time?” We want to pose the question in a
way that’s persuasive on the side of our client. And our clients are...Chambless
and Mendez!
Okay,
we did that too! And it’s almost 6 PM
now!