Legal Writing III: Appellate Drafting

Catalog description

7352. 3 hours. Legal Writing III is a required course that satisfies the Upper-Level Major Writing Requirement. UNT Dallas College of Law offers a variety of Legal Writing III courses that students can select based on their interest. All Legal Writing III courses are designed to give students experience drafting multiple writing assignments and engaging in the process of rewriting each of the major assignments in the course. Although the type of writings being drafted vary based on the topic of the Legal Writing III course, all Legal Writing III courses include at least (and often more than) a total of 25-pages of writing with the opportunity to rewrite the major assignment(s) after significant written and oral feedback from the course professor. Major writing assignments will comprise at least 60 percent of the course grade. Additionally, all Legal Writing III courses require students to complete at least two Multi-State Performance Tests ("MPT") selected by the Director of Legal Writing. A practice MPT will be given at the midterm exam and a graded MPT (worth 10 percent of the course grade) will be given at the final exam. This course will focus on oral and written appellate advocacy with an emphasis on appellate matters in federal court, especially the U.S. Supreme Court. Students will learn techniques of written and oral persuasion, how to structure legal arguments, how to research and cite effectively, how to use proper grammar, and how to comply with ethical responsibilities in appellate advocacy. The course will begin with general principles of argumentation and legal reasoning. Students will then learn how to perform an excellent oral argument and learn the proper structure and method for drafting an outstanding appellate brief. This course serves as a major writing requirement.