Navigating this Blog

There are countless ways to style legal writing. In this blog, you will find various approaches to legal writing that I have found to be effective. Take it all with a grain of salt.

I hope some of this helps. Good luck!

Rule

R (Rule).  Your Rule is a succinct statement of the law governing the specific legal element at issue in the subsection.


1. Your Rule should be the first sentence of your first paragraph in the subsection.  

2. Identifying your Rule is easier said than done.  

As a preliminary matter, there is the Macro-Rule, the big picture that governs the larger issue that you are addressing--the issue that you introduced in your Issue Statement (e.g., battery).  This Macro-Rule is what you explained briefly in your Umbrella paragraph.  It is the larger Rule that controls the area of law.  

However, most Macro-Rules are made up of a number of Mini-Rules or Elements--smaller rules that together comprise the larger rule, like ingredients in a cookie recipe.  In each sub-section of your Discussion, you will analyze one element at a time.  Thus, like your Conclusion, your Rule is not the rule that governs the central issue that you are addressing in the memo as a whole (unless your memo only has a single analysis section).  Rather, your Rule is actually a sub-rule that only speaks to the element at issue in the subsection at hand 

3.  Do not overstate or understate your rule.  One of the most common pitfalls for legal writers is to end up overstating the law.  For example, if your overall test is a balancing test, and no single sub-issue is dispositive, then write, “The court will consider whether the plaintiff . . . .”  But if the rule is dispositive, meaning that a plaintiff MUST satisfy the element, then make that clear by writing something to the effect of “To succeed with this claim, a plaintiff must prove . . . .”  If you over- or understate the rule, then your reader will not properly understand the law.

4.  Be sure to cite legal authority in support of your rule.  Without citing some sort of legal authority, your Rule may as well be, quite literally, your Rule, and not that of the of law.  Citing case law assures your reader that you are not just making stuff up, which lawyers at times attempt to do.  

     Sample Rule:
     (Trade Secret hypothetical from Issue Statement)

     To succeed with her claim for misappropriation of a trade secret, Ms. Petersen must first prove that her Pilates training method is a trade secret. Porter Industries, Inc. v.Higgins, 680 P.2d 1339, 1341 (Colo. App. 1984).