Legal Writing Class Notes 3/4/04

 

About the trial brief

 

We’ll be using the same facts.  The brief will build on the same problem.

 

Time to persuade!  We want to argue that in order to have a public policy, the violation must include the violation of a statute, which is not present here.

 

You can’t just argue factually in a brief because the court is going to give the party the benefit of the doubt on the facts.  In a motion to dismiss, all of the facts will be construed in favor of Russo.  We must make legal arguments!  We have to argue that even if the facts are true, the laws of the state of Connecticut will not find a public policy violation in this case.

 

Read the material for next week on persuasive writing and trial briefs.  Think about the difference between an office memo and a trial brief.  We’ll do the assignments in our groups.  We’ll go through the exercises.  Come prepared with questions about what the trial brief is supposed to look like.  Also, look at the trial brief in the appendix and think about how it’s written and structured.  Use the trial brief in the appendix as a model.

 

Remember to sign up for individual conferences.  The conferences will be at more favorable times because we won’t have Contracts by that time.

 

The final trial brief is due April 15th, which will be our last class.

 

Law professors aren’t taught how to teach.

 

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