Students' Guide to Legal Writing and Law Exams

Students' Guide to Legal Writing and Law Exams

Author: Enid Mona Campbell

Publisher:

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 99

ISBN-13: 9781862877559

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This popular and modestly priced work by experienced law teachers continues to offer law students succinct but essential practical advice on to how to prepare well researched and written work required for assessment in law courses and the strategies for effective preparation and sitting of law exams.The third edition been updated first, to reflect the increasing reliance of law students upon electronic modes of communication, for learning, for research, for interaction with the University and their friends, for organising and planning and for recreation. It contains a fully revised section dealing with the use of electronic resources, including guidance on using search tools such as Google, and a discussion of the need for a critical and careful approach to reliance upon internet sources. It outlines processes for electronic submission of assignments and discusses the benefits and pitfalls of using resources such as recorded lectures online. Further advice regarding the dangers of plagiarism and the possible consequences for the future of law graduates seeking admission to practice has also been incorporated.Second, the material on examination formats has been updated to reflect the changing modes of assessment in law schools.Third, is the inclusion of a new section on Self Assessment. This will help new law students test whether they have adopted successful study practices and have attitudes conducive to success in law. It will also help them evaluate for themselves what type of student they are and what more they need to do to get the most out of their law studies and the larger opportunities for personal development in a university setting.


The Pre-writing Handbook for Law Students

The Pre-writing Handbook for Law Students

Author: Laura P. Graham

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781611631845

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Intended primarily for use in the first few weeks of the first-semester legal writing course, The Pre-Writing Handbook for Law Students takes a systematic approach to the process of learning legal analysis. The Handbook is designed to help students focus on and become competent in the process of legal analysis that precedes their work on early legal writing products such as memos, case briefs, and other documents. This book teaches a new approach to learning legal analysis through the introduction of a series of repeatable steps that students can apply to any legal scenario. By practicing and internalizing these analytic steps, students will experience a smoother writing process that translates into a better written product. Each chapter of the Handbook contains several useful features: Frequent metacognitive "checkpoints"--text boxes that prompt students to pause or stop in their pre-writing work and assess their own efficiency and effectiveness. Concrete examples of how the steps in the pre-writing process actually work in two fully developed recurring legal scenarios. End-of-chapter recaps that summarize the desired results of the student's work during each step of the pre-writing process. Independent Practice Exercises. The Teacher's Manual includes advice on how to incorporate this book's new approach into an existing first-semester legal writing course; complete keys to all of the book's exercises; and complete samples of objective memos, a trial brief, an opinion letter, and a demand letter for use with the recurring scenarios and the independent exercises. The thorough content of the Teacher's Manual should enable professors to use the Handbook effectively with minimal additional preparation. "The Handbook hits the nail on the head! It centers on exactly what is missing from all the other legal writing books: the deep thinking that is necessary before pen hits paper." -- Joi Montiel, Faulkner University School of Law "Writing professors have claimed for years that learning to write is learning to think; legal writing professors have claimed for years that learning legal writing entails learning legal analysis. This book makes good on both claims and provides a welcome and useful tool for anyone trying to master legal writing." -- J. Christopher Rideout, Professor of Lawyering Skills and Associate Director of the Legal Writing Program, Seattle University School of Law "You need to crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run, and run before you can fly. Professors Graham and Felsenburg will have fledgling students flying in no time." -- Louis J. Sirico, Jr., Professor of Law and Director, Legal Writing Program, Villanova University School of Law


Legal Writing in the Disciplines

Legal Writing in the Disciplines

Author: Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781594609596

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McMurtry-Chubb received the 2021 Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing. The award is is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to improve the field of Legal Writing. One of the most common questions that prospective law students ask is "What is the best major to prepare me to study law?" The most common answer given by college advisors is "Any major." The perception of law school as a "free for all" accessible to students of any major sets students up for the confusion they experience in learning the law and legal skills. When students begin their legal education, they are taken out of their undergraduate and graduate disciplines and placed into the legal discipline without context for how their disciplinary education relates to their legal education. This leads to many of the frustrations that new law students have with law school, especially in their legal writing classes. Legal Writing in the Disciplines re-conceptualizes law in its disciplinary context. The text is designed to effectively communicate legal analysis and writing skills to pre-law and new law students using the language of their undergraduate and graduate majors. Legal writing is disciplinary writing, not just another form of technical writing. Law school is a disciplinary community. Integration into any disciplinary community occurs through the processes of reading and writing. The first chapter of the text details all aspects of the processes used to create practical legal writing (case briefs, notes, outlines and MindMaps, legal memos, legal briefs, exam outlines and exam answers). The five remaining chapters are divided into five broad disciplinary categories: Science, Social Science, Arts, Humanities and Business. Each chapter contains discipline-specific instruction on creating the different types of legal writing. The chapter sections lead the reader through the resolution of a legal problem through legal writing and provide answers for self-check with discipline-specific explanations on an interactive CD-ROM. The CD-ROM allows students to load PDFs (the materials, exercises, model answers, and case files to which the text refers) onto an iPad or other tablet for flexibility and ease of use in practicing legal writing skills. Additionally, the materials, exercises, and model answers are annotated in color with discipline-specific explanations to guide students as they assimilate new legal writing skills. A teacher's manual accompanies the text and features semester and quarter course planning options, learning outcomes and performance criteria for each week, lecture notes for each week, in-class exercises and supporting materials, and assessment rubrics for all assignments and skills. The rubrics are keyed to the weekly learning outcomes and performance criteria. An interactive CD-ROM with case files for a legal memo, legal brief, and other instructional materials is included.


Elements of Legal Writing

Elements of Legal Writing

Author: Martha Faulk

Publisher: Pearson

Published: 1996-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780028608396

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This easy-to-use primer lays out 135 principles of clear writing, dictation, tone, grammar, syntax, organization, and format. Filled with before-and-after examples and illustrations from the legal world, the book is both a welcome refresher for the practicing lawyer and an indispensable reference for anyone in the legal profession.


Guide to Legal Writing Style

Guide to Legal Writing Style

Author: Terri LeClercq

Publisher: Aspen Publishers

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13:

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Helps law students gain essential skills needed to advance from acceptable to exceptional writing, focusing on organization, sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, and formatting. Includes exercises and reviews for self or group testing. This second edition includes a new chapter on formattin


Legal Writing from the Ground Up

Legal Writing from the Ground Up

Author: Tracy Turner

Publisher: Aspen Publishing

Published: 2015-01-30

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 1454858796

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Legal Writing from the Ground Up: Process, Principles, and Possibilities breaks down legal writing into a step-by-step process but avoids a one-size-fits-all approach. This book helps legal writing professors balance the need to encourage original and strategic thinking while providing guidance for students as they develop their legal writing skills. Tracy Turner writes with today s generation of students in mind, and helps to arm student with specific and powerful tools without shackling their creativity. Key Features Multiple adaptations of the Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion (IRAC) paradigm that reflect a different approaches to problem solving Different strategic considerations in selecting the right analytical model for a particular case Consistent emphasis on the foundations of legal analysis Proven-effective techniques for continuing skill development Visual aids that are transferable learning tools, such as charts and diagrams Critical reading techniques, clearly explained Visually navigable pages and the author s direct and engaging writing style An intuitively logical organization of content, that easily adapts to myriad approaches to teaching and study


The Legal Writing Survival Guide

The Legal Writing Survival Guide

Author: Rachel H. Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781611631456

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The Legal Writing Survival Guide is for any law student or lawyer facing legal writing's most common conundrums, including: the document that is too complicated, the memo that didn't find the "right" answer, the brief that must deal with bad law, and the email that has to deliver bad news. Covering predictive writing, persuasive writing, and correspondence, it offers practical tips, tricks, and tactics. The Legal Writing Survival Guide also includes clear illustrations and solutions to common grammar, punctuation, citation, and style issues that are critical to surviving any legal writing assignment. It is the survival guide you have been waiting for. Whether you are a procrastinator, a pessimist, or just plain perplexed, The Legal Writing Survival Guide will help.


A Lawyer Writes

A Lawyer Writes

Author: Christine Nero Coughlin

Publisher:

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781531020699

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"Like the popular earlier editions, the fourth edition of A Lawyer Writes puts the reader in the place of a first-year attorney faced with real-life assignments. In doing so, it teaches law students not only how to succeed in law school, but also how to succeed in the practice of law. Using graphics and visual samples that demonstrate both effective and ineffective analytical techniques, this updated edition illustrates best practices for objective legal analysis and provides an overview of the transition from objective to persuasive writing. The content and examples in the fourth edition have been supplemented, updated, and reorganized to provide an easy-to-use, step-by-step approach for learning legal analysis and objective writing. A Lawyer Writes aims to provide clear and concrete instruction about each facet of legal analysis, using the same order students will follow when performing the tasks in legal practice. The textbook also provides the relevant theory and background behind the choices attorneys make in their legal writing, enabling students to transfer those techniques to future settings. Speaking to its readers in a straightforward manner, A Lawyer Writes communicates essential skills and theories students can use throughout a lifetime of legal practice"--