Legal Writing: A Contemporary Approach (Interactive Casebook Series)

This Legal Writing textbook guides first year law students and those new to legal writing through the thinking and writing process used in the legal profession. This book covers both predictive and persuasive writing in a way that is accessible to students. The text begins with an introduction on students’ identities within law school and the profession and its impact on their educational journey. It builds skills gradually and introduces students to reading and briefing cases, gathering facts using various methods, drafting memoranda, client communications, transactional documents, and writing for the court. The text provides a concise introduction to citations, showing students how citation fits within the context of legal writing. The text delves into the art of giving and receiving feedback effectively so students will not only learn to edit their work and the work of others for style and substance, they will also learn how to communicate this information.

The text gives examples for students to use as models and has many interactive exercises through which students can test their newly acquired skills, including an annotated example that compares a memorandum and an appellate brief. The online text has links to the cases that students will need, definitions, videos, a(more...)