A 1L Guide to Legal Writing
Why I Wrote This Book
Dear IL, I am beginning this book with a confession. I always swore I would not write a book on legal writing. There are plenty of legal writing books out there, and I was not sure I had anything new to add on the topic. Then I realized that my students rarely did much reading of any writing book I assigned to the class. I did not reference the books very frequently, and to the extent I did it was frequently to make distinctions. I recognize that the casebook readings for doctrinal courses are already overwhelming (I also teach Contracts, so I know firsthand how much reading you have), and that if there is reading that 1L students are going to give short shrift, it will be the reading for the legal writing class. Also, the workload of legal writing classes typically outweighs the number of credits the students earn for the class. Accordingly, I wrote this book to provide students a no-frills, straightforward reference for legal writing concepts.
I tell my students that teaching legal writing is a lot like teaching someone to drive. I can talk about driving until I am blue in the face: telling you where to put your hands on the wheel, how to adjust your mirrors, and what to do with the gas pedal, gears, brakes, traffic rules, etcetera; but most of your learning will occur when you actually do it yourself. Similarly, most of your learning about legal writing will come from actually applying what your professor teaches you, and through your individual conferences with your professor and your ongoing editorial process. This book puts that learning in a framework by providing guidance followed by clear examples.
The book is organized in three parts. The first two parts parallel the typical structure of a 1L legal writing program. Part I addresses the predictive memorandum of the first semester, and Part II illustrates how to write persuasively through the common second-semester paradigm of the appellate brief. Part III includes a number of resources and examples that are meant to complement the reading and assist you in writing that extends beyond your classroom assignments.
For the sake of simplicity and consistency, all the examples in this book stem from the same fact pattern. This fact pattern, which follows this preface, is a promissory estoppel (think Contracts) issue about a law student to whom a law firm promised future employment and later reneged.
What This Book Is Not
This book will not teach you how to research, cite, or select cases that you will use in legal documents. Your legal writing professor, law librarian, or someone else will teach you that. I promised you the basics, and that would go beyond the basics. I recognize that even if your attention span were unlimited, I am competing for your time and attention with reading from doctrinal casebooks, and perhaps even other legal writing books.
Most important, this is not a substitute for what you learn in your legal writing class. Of course, there is always some subjectivity involved in how professors approach legal writing, so to the extent that what you read differs from what your professor teaches you, by all means adopt the approach of the person who will grade your assignment.
Although it has been quite a long time, my memories of the feelings of excitement and anxiety of the first year of law school remain vivid. I hope that this book serves as a valuable resource as you take this auspicious journey.
Sincerely, Professor Pinder