Organization of A Lawyer Writes

A Lawyer Writes is organized around the analytical and writing tasks that students will face as they write an objective legal memorandum. It is composed of 17 chapters, three sample memos, and a glossary. To provide you with a quick overview of the book, we've broken down the chapters according to the kinds of tasks they address:

Understanding the Environment

Introduction

Chapter 1, How Attorneys Communicate

These chapters put students in the role of a new attorney, provide an overview of the memo writing process, allow them to see a sample of a memo, and explain how memos are used. Thus, these chapters provide context for all the chapters ahead.

Learning Fundamental Principles

Chapter 2, Sources and Systems of the Law

This chapter provides students with the fundamental principles of our legal system: the branches of government, court hierarchies, jurisdiction, stare decisis, and precedent.

Pre-writing Tasks

Chapter 3, Reading for Comprehension

Chapter 4, Finding Your Argument

Chapter 5, Organizing Your Legal Authority

These chapters walk students through the pre-writing stages: reading and organizing legal authorities. Of these chapters, Chapter 4, Finding Your Argument, is most analytically important. It discusses how to break a government rule down into its elements. That step is, of course, a necessary prelude to both organizing one's research (Chapter 5) and organizing one's memo (addressed in later chapters).

Drafting One Legal Argument

Chapter 6, One Legal Argument

Chapter 7, Explaining the Law

Chapter 8, Applying the Law

Chapter 9, Conclusions to One Legal Argument

Comprising over a quarter of the book, these chapters are the heart of A Lawyer Writes. They explain to students that "one legal argument" (a.k.a. one IRAC, one CREAC, one CREXAC, one CRRPAP), is the fundamental building block of a lawyer's analysis. Then, step-by-step, the chapters take students through the process of building one legal argument.

Drafting Specialized Parts of a Legal Argument

Chapter 10, Policy

Chapter 11, Statutory Analysis

A legal argument may or may not include a policy analysis or a statutory analysis. Assign these chapters if and when they are relevant to the legal arguments your students are writing. Otherwise, skip them.

Drafting Other Memorandum Parts

Chapter 12, The Discussion Section: Introducing and Connecting Legal Arguments

Chapter 13, Question Presented and Brief Answer

Chapter 14, Statement of Facts

Chapter 15, Conclusion to the Memorandum

After your students have learned to write a single legal argument, they are then ready to place those arguments within the context of a legal memorandum. These chapters allow your students to complete a legal memorandum.

Editing and Polishing

Chapter 16, Editing and Polishing

No writing task is complete until it has been edited and polished. This chapter explains the importance of editing and polishing and then describes a detailed process students can follow so that they can learn to edit and polish their own work.

Writing in the Modern World

Chapter 17, Client Letters

Chapter 18, Professional E-mails

Today, the formal memorandum is often put aside in favor of a quick e-mail. This chapter discusses how to respond to a legal question by e-mail and how to do so professionally.

Persuasive Writing

Chapter 19, The Transition from Objective to Persuasive Writing