This skills-based course simulates a legal practice environment. Students complete a series of writing projects related to simulated case files or legal problems. Students are permitted to take multiple sections of this course, as different sections incorporate different practice areas and experiences.
Advanced Legal Writing: Business Practice
This course emphasizes and builds effective writing and communications skills in the transactional, business practice setting. The course will focus on a range of formal and informal documents and communication formats: drafting contract provisions and letters to clients and counterparties in transactional and pre-contentious settings; reviewing, interpreting, and editing the (often imperfect) contracts submitted by opposing counsel; preparing transaction task lists, due diligence memoranda or other internal communications for use by colleagues; and presentations to a board of directors or other client audience supported by written materials including PowerPoint visuals with substantive content and impact. Some attention will be given to ethics and professionalism in written content, including in the context of engagement letters with clients, declination letters with prospective clients, and conflict waivers among clients. Several sessions will also focus on special considerations when working and communicating with clients and counterparties in or from other countries where the laws, customs, practices, and language are different from our own. In-class sessions will typically be used for lecture and discussion to develop concepts and facts from selected readings and materials, which students will then incorporate in brief written assignments before the next class. There may be occasional in-class brief, flash quizzes based on the assigned readings to launch our discussions. Students will be graded based on written assignments, quizzes and exercises, and class participation.
Advanced Writing for Legal Practice: Illinois Civil and Criminal Litigation
The preparation of a case for trial calls upon a powerful kind of thinking that is useful in any field of law, as well as necessary to present the case at trial. This course provides specific training in advanced legal writing to build strength and maturity in the kind of analysis that a trial lawyer performs.
The course focuses on the development of skills necessary for particular writing assignments that arise in the course of civil and criminal litigation. Students learn how to perform these skills through in-class discussion of the assignments and through the writing necessary to complete the assignments. Because practice in oral advocacy highlights ways in which a lawyer's writing can be improved, this course will call on you to participate in oral advocacy exercises as well as undertake the specific writing assignments.
The course covers a wide range of skills, including the drafting of legal memoranda and pleadings, the preparation and presentation of motions, opening statements and closing arguments, the development of outlines to examine or interview witnesses, the use of discovery tools, and the application of a structured approach to settlement negotiations.
Advanced Legal Writing: Business Practice
This course emphasizes and builds effective writing and communications skills in the transactional, business practice setting. The course will focus on a range of formal and informal documents and communication formats: drafting contract provisions and letters to clients and counterparties in transactional and pre-contentious settings; reviewing, interpreting, and editing the (often imperfect) contracts submitted by opposing counsel; preparing transaction task lists, due diligence memoranda or other internal communications for use by colleagues; and presentations to a board of directors or other client audience supported by written materials including PowerPoint visuals with substantive content and impact. Some attention will be given to ethics and professionalism in written content, including in the context of engagement letters with clients, declination letters with prospective clients, and conflict waivers among clients. Several sessions will also focus on special considerations when working and communicating with clients and counterparties in or from other countries where the laws, customs, practices, and language are different from our own. In-class sessions will typically be used for lecture and discussion to develop concepts and facts from selected readings and materials, which students will then incorporate in brief written assignments before the next class. There may be occasional in-class brief, flash quizzes based on the assigned readings to launch our discussions. Students will be graded based on written assignments, quizzes and exercises, and class participation.
Advanced Writing for Legal Practice: Illinois Civil and Criminal Litigation
The preparation of a case for trial calls upon a powerful kind of thinking that is useful in any field of law, as well as necessary to present the case at trial. This course provides specific training in advanced legal writing to build strength and maturity in the kind of analysis that a trial lawyer performs.
The course focuses on the development of skills necessary for particular writing assignments that arise in the course of civil and criminal litigation. Students learn how to perform these skills through in-class discussion of the assignments and through the writing necessary to complete the assignments. Because practice in oral advocacy highlights ways in which a lawyer's writing can be improved, this course will call on you to participate in oral advocacy exercises as well as undertake the specific writing assignments.
The course covers a wide range of skills, including the drafting of legal memoranda and pleadings, the preparation and presentation of motions, opening statements and closing arguments, the development of outlines to examine or interview witnesses, the use of discovery tools, and the application of a structured approach to settlement negotiations.