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Learn how to draft a legal memorandum like a lawyer, that showcases objective legal analysis and conclusions.
There are two forms of writing most used within the legal industry: objective legal writing and persuasive legal writing. Whether in a law firm or in-house legal team, a necessary skill for all lawyers is the ability to draft an objective legal memorandum, in which a legal question is answered objectively, with all sides and possibilities looked at. In this Build Project, you will wear the hat of an entry level lawyer and will learn how to formulate a research strategy when presented with a legal question that needs answering, how to find and analyze the laws relevant to your search, and finally, how to write this analysis down for your legal or non-legal audience to understand.
Through a broad overview, you will learn how the country’s legal system works. You will learn how Congress and federal and state courts interplay with each other within the system to create laws.
You will be taught how to navigate one or more of the standard legal databases used in the industry. You will also learn the basics of formulating a big-picture legal research strategy. Hypothetical facts will be given to you to use for the end of project work, the objective legal memo, as well as format requirements.
You will learn about the different sources of law and how to find them. You will also learn how to use these different sources in your own legal writing.
You will learn how to find statutes relevant to your research and how to analyze them. You will also learn how to break the statute down into elements necessary for application.
You will learn how to locate court cases relevant to your research. You will also learn how to understand these cases and create rule statements out of them.
You will learn how to compare cases as a reasoning tool in legal writing. You will also learn how to apply the law (cases and statutes) to the facts of a given hypothetical for the objective legal memo, as well as how to how to write for both a legal and non-legal audience.
You will learn how to write other non-analysis sections of the objective memo. You will also be taught how to use the Bluebook to format citations for sources used in their memos and other legal writing. The objective legal memo final project document will be due after this session, but before session 8.
You will be given a general refresher of previous sessions material on the US legal system, legal research and legal writing. You will present your final legal conclusions, as well as thoughts on the research and writing process.
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