Time and Location
Tuesday 2/3, Thursday 3 0408 Weil Hall
Description and Goals
It is no exaggeration to say that in courts of law people’s lives depend on the character of words. It is also true that the livelihood of lawyers depends on their ability to put language to its most productive ends. It is with these ideas that we take up the subject of writing and law. Lawyers are notorious for producing impenetrable documents. On the other hand, some of the most eloquent writing about our society has been set down by attorneys and judges. Our job will be to learn what we can from those well-stated arguments and opinions and to avoid what makes legal writing so notoriously difficult to read.
This course is designed to be, in large part, a practical workshop on the most common forms of legal writing. It is also a consideration of the character of legal communication in general. To these ends, we will write several documents including a legal brief, a legal memorandum, and an annotated bibliography. The last two of these will help us to become familiar with legal research and law library resources.
We will develop the rhetorical skills of argument and persuasion while mastering the basic elements of style. Field trips, including one to the law school’s moot court, will illustrate that speaking is integral to this discipline. Hence, our course also has an oral communications component wherein you will learn the basic skills of parliamentary debate.
*ENC 3254 fulfills the University’s General Education Composition (C) requirement and the 6,000 word Gordon Rule Requirement.
Texts
Writing in Pre-law (coursepack) Available at Target Copy
Legal Research and Writing by Statsky, 5th edition
Final Exam
There is no final exam for this course. In a sense, the Final Debate Tournament substitutes for the final and should be regarded as equally important.
Grading Scale
The evaluation of written work will be thorough and rigorous, holding students to the highest professional standards. Students will be allowed to revise and resubmit work that is not passing quality. We will use a 1000-point system, the points of which will be distributed as follows:
50 First short brief
100 Group negligence Briefs
200 Memorandum of Law
100 Annotated Bibliography
200 Personal Statement, Business letter, and resume
250 All Debates (presentation, logic, improvement)
100 Class Participation
Attendance and Late Policy
Attendance is, of course, required and is a substantial portion of the participation grade. Every absence over three lowers your final average by 50 points or one half of a letter-grade. Note that double periods count as two missed classes. As former students have learned to their sorrow, failure to take the attendance policy seriously may result in some unpleasant surprises.
Class Schedule
Spring 2015
Section 3544
Introduction
Special Note: ALL PAPERS MUST BE DOUBLE SPACED. NO SINGLE SPACED WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED. NO PAPERS WITH ANY HANDWRITING WILL BE ACCEPTED, INCLUDING MARKS OR COMMENTS OF THE PEER REVIEWER.
Week 1
Tuesday: Discuss syllabus, texts, and other matters.
Assignments
“Legal jargon and the plain English Movement”:
http://www.cohenslaw.com/articles/plainenglish.html
and Writing in Law, David Hricik, “The American Legal System.” Read carefully for Tuesday next week.
Thursday: Writing Diagnostic: Write an extemporaneous essay of approximately 500 words on the topic of why communication, and writing in particular, is critical to the success of an attorney. Do not revise.
Week 2
Tuesday: Lecture and class discussion: Plain English Movement article and Hricik article. Reading Assignment : Leonard Tourney and Gina Genova, “IRAC: How to Write about Legal Cases” including “Incident at the Airport” and the following exercises through p. 760
Law west of the Pecos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_saloon#mediaviewer/File:Judge_Roy_Bean.jpg
.Thursday: Close discussion of Tourney/Genova material. Be prepared to be called on.
Lecture and Discussion: More abut legal reasoning and the IRAC format.
Assignment: Write a short legal brief using the IRAC format concerning a situation with which you are familiar, either through personal experience or a media account. It need not be authentic but it must reflect legal thinking.
Week 3
Part I: Arguing and Writing Legal Briefs for Negligence Case Debates
Tuesday:
Due: Your legal brief for peer review. Revise and hand-in by end of period.
Introduction to Legal Debate: Product Liability Cases
Assignment: Read the two hot coffee spill product liability cases from on-line sources. Hardees v.Greene can be found under Greene v. Boddie-Noell Enterprises, Inc. The case was tried in the Western District of Virginia. Negligence debates: Form four teams. Prepare for debates.
Thursday: Negligence debates:
Round One: Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants
Week 4
Tuesday:
Greene v. Hardee’s
Due: Team briefs for the hot coffee spill cases.
Introduction to Subway Cases
Assignment: Read the two negligence cases involving New York City subway accidents.
Thursday:
Negligence debates: Round One: Lucas v. NYC Transit Authority
Week 5
Tuesday:
Negligence debates: Round Two: Robinson v. NYC Transit Authority
Due: Team briefs for the two subway cases.
Part II: Writing a Legal Memorandum of Law with a Brief Introduction to Legal Research
Assignment: Legal Research and Writing, Chapter 16, pp. 296-307
Choose an on-going case from the any source such as the news media or the internet. You will be working on this case within it’s own special area of the law through several major assignments in this unit, so choose an area that interests you and is reasonably challenging intellectually. Once you have chosen your case, write a brief description of your case (one paragraph) and submit it to me for approval. Emphasize the points of law rather than the facts. The case must be interesting from the perspective of the law as opposed to celebrated or bizarre.
Possible Cases;
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/07/finally_wall_street_gets_put_on_trial_we_can_still_hold_the_0_1_percent_responsible_for_tanking_the_economy/
Thursday: Discussion: Issue statements in a legal memorandum
In-class assignment: After your case has been approved, write an issue statement for your case.
Week 6
Tuesday:
BRING YOUR STATSKY TEXT TO CLASS!
Due: Draft of Issue Statement for peer review. Revise and turn-in at end of first class period. Discussion of Facts section of memorandum. Write draft of Facts section.
Thursday: BRING YOUR STATSKY TEXT TO CLASS!
Due: Draft of the Facts section of your memorandum for peer review. Revised Facts section due on Tuesday.
Discussion: The Analysis section and its Super Peer Review.
Assignment: Write a draft Analysis section of your memorandum.
Week 7
Tuesday:
Due: Peer review of Memo through Facts section. Revise and hand-in with draft analysis section and conclusion and recommendation sections on Thursday, October 16th.
Super Peer Review prep. Time allowed to work on analysis section in class.
Peer Review: Application Section of the Legal Memorandum
After you establish the issues related to your case and have pinpointed the applicable rules that govern an argument about those issues, you are ready to write the application section, or analysis, of your memorandum. This is the most difficult and important section, because, even if you have clearly outlined the issues and found the correct rule, the quality of your writing will make or break your analysis. Here, you are required to apply the rules to the facts of the case to discover how the issues should be answered. A higher level of thinking is involved in this section, requiring you to be especially methodical in the construction of your sentences and paragraphs.
For the peer review, exchange papers with a partner. You may make notations on the paper itself, but also make a type written statement addressing the following issues that are relevant to your review. Your goal is to help the peer improve the paper, so constructive criticism is the most useful type of comment you can make. Give a copy of your review to the author of the paper and one to me.
Organization
The issues and rules should be dealt with one at a time and not mixed up.
Each issue or sub-issue should be dealt with in a separate paragraph.
An effective structure for each analytical paragraph would mimic the structure of the overall essay: Issue, Rule, Application of the rule to the facts of the case, Conclusion regarding the issue at hand.
Clarity
The topic of each paragraph should be made clear with a definitive topic sentence–usually this would regard the issue being introduced or the rule being applied.
Sentences should be simply put and free of mechanical errors and unnecessary jargon.
The applicable rules should be stated in full and cited correctly.
Logic
The analysis should not rely on conjecture.
The facts should not be manipulated to suite the purpose of the argument.
Logical fallacies, such as question begging and circular reasoning, should be avoided.
Counter-arguments should be raised and analyzed.
The client’s weakest positions should be exposed and dealt with rather than ignored.
Thursday: In-class work on Super peer review of Analysis Section. Revise your Analysis Section and hand-in with rest of Memo on Thursday, (in law library).
Assignment: Write the Conclusion and Recommendation Sections. Draft of Memo (entire) due on Thursday (in law library).:
Week 8
Tuesday: Meet in lobby of Law Library, Levin School of Law
Law Library orientation by Legal Reference Librarian.
Assignment: Write an Annotated Bibliography. For examples and specific requirements see below.
Draft due on Tuesday, March 10th.
Background Research and the Annotated Bibliography Assignment
(Refer to Legal Research and Writing, p. 281, for a contextual explanation of how an annotated bibliography is used in the legal profession.)
Background Research
The purpose of this assignment:
Primary Goals
To gain a general understanding of your topic and legal issue
To verify that the rule you have chosen is the rule that governs the case you have chosen
To find opinions that help you interpret this rule
Secondary Goals
To become familiar with the major areas of the law
To identify jurisdictions, i.e. federal, state, local
To identify major causes of action and defenses and apply these to your case
To define some principal legal terms
To learn how to construct an annotated bibliography
Sources of Background Information
Dictionaries
Balentines’s Law Dictionary
Black’s law Dictionary:
http://www.nationallibertyalliance.org/files/docs/Books/Black%27s%20Law%204th%20edition,%201891.pdf
Oran’s Law Dictionary
West’s Legal Thesaurus/Dictionary
Encyclopedias
American Jurisprudence 2d (AM Jur 2D)
Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)
Florida Jurisprudence
Legal Treatises
Look for KF call numbers
Legal Periodicals
Law Reviews
Florida Law Review
Legal Newspapers and Magazines
National Law Journal
Legal Times of Washington
American Lawyer
Digests or Summaries of the Law
Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory
Florida Digest
Federal Practice Digest
Codebooks
Florida Statutes Annotated
United States Code (USC)
United States Code Annotated (USC Annotated)
Reporters
Southern Reporter
American Law Reports (ALR)
U.S. Reports (Supreme Court)
West’s Supreme Court Reporter
Federal District Court Opinion (FDC)
Assignment
Write an annotated bibliography including each of the above sources. Begin with a boldface category heading (i.e. DICTIONARY)and below that place your citation to the source in correct form (see below). Then write an annonation of approximately 100 words below the citation, indenting five points. The annotation must include the following information:
a) A general summary of the source category. Discuss how it is used and by whom.
b) A brief summary of how the source was helpful to you in understanding the case you present in your memo. For example, in the case of the Legal Dictionary, explain what word or words you looked up and quote their definitions.
You must Include at least one entry for each of the background sources listed above.
Note: Staple a photocopy of the title page of each source that you locate along with a copy of those pages of the source you have used in researching your case. Highlight the applicable parts of the text you have copied.
General Format for Citations:
Author, Title, Source PAGE (Date)
For example: Robert Catz & Susan Robinson, Due Process and Creditor’s Remedies, 28 Rutgers L. Rev. 541
(1975)
In this space you will write your annotation of the above source.
Thursday: MEET IN THE LAW LIBRARY
Individual research in law library
Consultations on Annotated Bibliography.
Week 9: SPRING BREAK!
Week 10:
Tuesday:
Writing a legal business letter. See example in text. Letter is due with revised Memo.
Draft of completed Annotated Bibliography for peer review.
Due: Draft of Annotated Bibliography for peer review
Draft of Memo with changes highlighted for peer review
Part III: Applying to Law School and Beyond
Thursday: Lecture and discussion: Writing the Personal Statement
Assignment: Write a draft Personal Statement. Due for peer review on Tuesday
Week 11
Tuesday: Peer Review of Personal Statement.
Time allotted in class for revision of personal statement.
Part IV: Legal Argument II
Create four teams for the two felled stop sign cases:
Thursday: Utah vs. Hallett
Week 12
Tuesday:
Florida v. Miller
Introduction to drag racing cases
Thursday:
Time allotted for preparation of arguments followed by:
Debate: Pennsylvania vs. Root
Week 13
Tuesday: Pennsylvania vs. Levin
Thursday:
Final Debate Tournament
Discussion of debate time, place, and format
Film: Verdutto Finale or How the Italians Do It.
Week 14
Tuesday:
Introduction to the three tournament cases:
Harris v. Jones (trial court level)
California v. Knoller (trial court level)
Strong v. New York (appellate level)
Assignment: Form three focus groups. Each group will write a detailed IRAC brief of one of the three cases and present it to the rest of the class, who will critique the presentation (as to the points of law). Briefs due on date of presentation.
Thursday:
Further remarks about the three cases
Harris v. Jones:
presentation and class critique
Week 15
Tuesday:
California v. Knoller:
presentation and class critique
Thursday:
Strong v. New York:
presentation and class critique
Tournament Team formation.
Week 16
Tuesday: Class time allotted for team work
Wednesday, April 22nd: Debate Tournament, Levin College of Law