Writing to Win

Catalog description

This course delivers intensive hands-on training in written advocacy with emphasis on (i) writing to persuade trial and appellate judges rather than impress academics; (ii) the primary salience of marshalling facts, as opposed to case law, to produce favorable outcomes; (iii) how to identify and cunningly frame brief worthy issues; (iii) issue preservation rules and their exceptions; (iv) harmless error doctrines; and (v) the standards of appellate review. There is no casebook or treatise. Instead, working exclusively through unedited transcripts of actual trials, the course develops the crafts, skills, and cunning required to produce a first-rate advocate?s brief. Students begin with a short brief-writing exercise based upon a rather simple transcript and work their way up to a lengthy and complex murder case for which each student writes a soup-to-nuts brief. All practice work is closely analyzed and line-edited word by word. Though criminal transcripts are used, the skills developed are readily transferrable to the civil arena. Some familiarity with LAW 7330 and LAW 7118 would be helpful.