American J.D. Program/Legal Writing
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Contents |
[edit] Introduction to Legal Writing, Cases, and Case Briefs
[edit] What is legal writing
Law could be either oral or written. But in most cases, we assume that law is written.
There are many types of legal writing.
Legal Documents
- Treaties
- Statutes
- Contracts
Documents About Law
- Closed Memo
Written analysis of a legal problem or issue with the case authority given.
- Open Memo
the open memo you have to find the case law on your own.
- Memo
- Legal Brief
- Casenote
- Law School Outline
- Opinion letter
Legal writing is a specialized form of writing. Legal writing emphasizes logic and clarity. It also follows the fabled "IRAC" method- Issue, Rule, Application and Conclusion.
[edit] Law and Legal Writing
[edit] Legal Research
Legal research is unlike the research you have done in high school and college. They look similar and certainly they both require a firm grasp of good analytical ability. Legal research can be boring and mind numbing to many because of the huge amount of material and strict rules that you must follow.
The lawyers heavily rely on the commercial electronic databases such as Westlaw or LexisNexis. Other important references used in legal research are Black's Law Dictionary, The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation,. Law schools have a huge library of books and material to help.
Some alternative and free electronic databases are available such as Justia, Findlaw, etc. However, since courts do consider the nature of the authority in ruling, traditional sources that interpret the law are generally preferred in practice.
At the very minimum you need to familarize yourself with using the electronic databases since they are becoming quite popular.
[edit] Sources of the Law
In the common law sytem, the judicial precedences are the main sources of the law. Simply put, the judges make the law by making decisions. This contrasts with the civil law system in which the codified statues prescribe what the judges should do. In today's world, this distinction is not as black and white however. For instance, the Uniform Commercial Code and the Restatement of the Law are a good example of the civil law approach taken by the U.S. legal system. Another example is the Model Penal Code.
Still, unlike the civil law jurisdictions, the U.S. lawyers are expected to read the cases (prior judicial decisions) and discern "common law" from it. The legal education in the U.S. and some parts in Canada is focused on building this skill- ability to identify the common rule or principle underlying in the apparently dissimilar cases.
Because there are 50 states in the U.S. and nearly 1 million lawyers with a natural obsession of ligation, you would expect that there would be many lawsuits and judicial decisions. To keep track of them all is quite daunting. Moreover, because there are not always a well summarized and neatly codified body of law to refer to but a vast sea of cases which sometimes conflict with each other, legal citation takes a great importance in legal writing. The reader of your legal writing wants to know which case you are referring to. Because there are so many of them, they will find it difficult to locate it unless you cite it properly.
[edit] Stare Decisis and the Doctrine of Precedent
Stare Decisis is a fancy Latin phrase that means the precedents are binding.
[edit] Briefing a Case
The most popular method of briefing a case is called IRAC.
Issue:
Identification of issue stands as the first step in the legal writing. To identify issues from the given facts,read the facts clearly and find the controversial part in it. Once you found the controversial part that is called as issue. The issue statement has to be in a consiced manner. Finding and attriculating the controversy in a facts constitutes the issue part.
Rule
Analysis
Conclusion
[edit] Case Brief, Casenotes, Memorandum
[edit] Legal Research: State and Federal
[edit] Bluebooking: Legal Citations
[edit] How to Cite
This program follows ALWD Citation Manual published by Association of Legal Writing Directors.
- United States Supreme Court Wikipedia v. Wikiversity, 541 U.S. 509 (2009).
- United States Court of Appeals Wikia, Inc. v. Wikiversity Co., 321 F.3d 656 (6th Cir. 2004).
- United States District Court Wikitravel v. Wikiquote, 71 F. Supp. 2d 475 (E.D. Pa. 1999).
- State Supreme Court (not using the local rule) Wikimedia, Inc. v. Wikiversity, 123 A.2d 223 (VT. 2005).
- State Appellate Court (not using the local rule) Main v. Page, 929 So.2ㅇ 214 (Miss. App. 2005).
- Parallel Citation Recent v. Change, 159 Ohio App. 3d 234, 252 N.E.2d 921 (2d Dist. 2008).
[edit] Abbreviations for Reporters
Exercise
Try to guess what each abbreviations mean.
- United States Reports U.S.
- Supreme Court Reporter S. Ct.
- United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer's Edition L. Ed.
- United States Law Week U.S.L.W.
- Federal Reporter F.
- Federal Reporter 2nd Series F.2d
- Federal Reporter 3rd Series F.3d
- Federal Supplement F. Supp.
- Federal Rules Decisions F.R.D.
- Bankruptcy Reporter B.R.
- Atlantic Reporter A.
- Atlantic Reporter, 2nd Series A.2d
- California Reporter Cal. Rptr.
- California Reporter, 2nd Series Cal. Rptr. 2d
- New York Supplement N.Y.S.
- New York Supplement, 2nd Series N.Y.S.2d
- North Eastern Reporter N.E.
- North Eastern Reporter N.E.
- North Eastern Reporter, 2nd Series N.E.2d
- North Western Reporter N.W.
- North Western Reporter, 2nd Series N.E.2d
- PPacific Reporter P.
- PPacific Reporter, 2nd Series P.2d
- Pacific Reporter, 3rd Series P.3d
- South Eastern Reporter S.E.
- South Eastern Reporter, 2nd Series S.E.2d
- South Western Reporter S.W.
- South Western Reporter, 2nd Series S.W.2d
- South Western Reporter, 3rd Series S.W.3d
- Southern Reporter So.
- Southern Reporter, 2nd Series S.2d
[edit] How to Cite
[edit] Case
- See Wiki v. Britannica, 265 U.S. 503, 512 (2008).
- See Wiki, 265 U.S. at 512.
[edit] State Case
- See Wikiversity v. Harvard, 123 P.2d 500, 508 (Okla. Crim. App. 2010).
- See Harvard, 123 P.2d at 508.
