1L Resources

Designed to help law students write and publish articles, this text provides detailed instructions for every aspect of the law school writing, research, and publication process. Topics covered include law review articles and student notes, seminar term papers, how to shift from research to writing, cite-checking others' work, publishing, and publicizing written works. With supporting documents available on http://volokh.com/writing, the book helps law students and everyone else involved in academic legal writing: professors save time and effort communicating basic points to students; law schools satisfy the American Bar Association's second- and third-year writing requirements; and law reviews receive better notes from their staff. The Fourth Edition adds examples drawn from successful student notes, coupled with detailed explanations of what makes the examples effective, and how they could have been made still more effective. It also elaborates further on how one can research a topic more comprehensively than many students do, both by finding a broader range of examples and applications, and by investigating the key cases more deeply.

The Aspen Handbook for Legal Writers, a brief and accessible reference on mechanics and style, is a useful companion to any legal writing text. Targeted at the needs of legal writers, the text initially focuses on the rules of grammar, style, and usage--with plenty of examples. A section on Legal Documents offers strategies to improve legal writing, with sample letters, memorandum, case brief, trial brief, and appellate brief. Numerous, helpful examples showcase both good and bad writing. This practical approach helps law students with common problems and dilemmas: substitutions for "legalese," lists of commonly used legal idioms, spelling tips, advice on organization and the legal writing process, proofreading, and document design.

A favorite among successful students, and often recommended by professors, the unique Examples & Explanations series gives you extremely clear introductions to concepts followed by realistic examples that mirror those presented in the classroom throughout the semester. Use at the beginning and midway through the semester to deepen your understanding through clear explanations, corresponding hypothetical fact patterns, and analysis. Then use to study for finals by reviewing the hypotheticals as well as the structure and reasoning behind the accompanying analysis. Designed to complement your casebook, the trusted Examples & Explanations titles get right to the point in a conversational, often humorous style that helps you learn the material each step of the way and prepare for the exam at the end of the course. The unique, time-tested Examples & Explanations series is invaluable to teach yourself the subject from the first day of class until your last review before the final. Each guide: helps you learn new material by working through chapters that explain each topic in simple language challenges your understanding with hypotheticals similar to those presented in class provides valuable opportunity to study for the final by reviewing the hypotheticals as well as the structure and reasoning behind the corresponding analysis quickly gets to the point in conversational style laced with humor remains a favorite among law school students is often recommended by professors who encourage the use of study guides works with ALL the major casebooks, suits any class on a given topic provides an alternative perspective to help you understand your casebook and in-class lectures

This highly regarded paperback, specifically directed at legal writers, offers - crisp, pointed advice written in a personal and humorous style - lucid organization that helps students find the information they need most, including organization, sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, and formatting - helpful examples of both good and bad writing that demonstrate the practical application of the author's advice - an emphasis on legal ethics throughout, with most of the examples and exercises focusing on ethical issues - a chapter on organization that compares and contrasts undergraduate terms and goals with those of a legal audience - a guide that helps students guard against plagiarism - short, end-of-chapter exercises, with the answers at the back of the book, that strengthen skills and provide opportunities for self-testing Special features in the Fourth Edition include: - an updated interactive CD-ROM with multiple exercises to reinforce the materials in the book, which includes updated and expanded tests of basic skills and click-on answers and explanations - a new section explaining common errors in professional writing and how to avoid making them - new checklists that reinforce essential advice of each chapter When you examine your complimentary copy of this popular paperback, you will agree that Guide to Legal Writing Style, Fourth Edition -- concise, to the point, focused on the nuances of legal writing -- is the perfect ancillary text for any legal writing course.

Adapted from the Legal Writing Handbook's highly praised Effective Writing and Correct Writing, Just Writing covers the basic principles of good legal writing, including style, grammar, punctuation, and other mechanics of writing. Its short length and focused content make it a perfect supplemental text for any legal writing course, providing tips, techniques, and helpful advice for every step of the process planning, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading. Just Writing guides students to eloquence in concise legal prose and contrasts plain English with legalese. The text integrates writing for English-as-a-Second-Language students in its presentation. Other supportive features include a Glossary of Usage and practice exercises on the companion website to sharpen students skills.

In this critically acclaimed book, Tom Goldstein and Jethro K. Lieberman demystify legal writing, outline the causes and consequences of poor writing, and prescribe easy-to-apply remedies to improve it. Reflecting changes in law practice over the past decade, this revised edition includes new sections around communicating digitally, getting to the point, and writing persuasively. It also provides an editing checklist, editing exercises with a suggested revision key, usage notes that address common errors, and reference works to further aid your writing. This straightforward guide is an invaluable tool for practicing lawyers and law students.  

Legal Writing, Third Edition is written in a engaging style with the authors explaining analytical writing in a concise, friendly, and accessible way. It includes outstanding coverage on organizing analysis according to the CREAC formula (also known as the paradigm), the writing process, storytelling techniques, rule analysis, statutory interpretation, and professionalism.

Legal Writing and Analysis, Fourth Edition, is a concise text that still has all of the clarity of Linda Edward's writing style and process-based approach. In a sequence that mirrors legal practice, students learn to read and analyze the law; discuss and write about legal issues; compose office and email memos, professional correspondence, and briefs; and prepare oral arguments. This book teaches students how to use analogical reasoning, in addition to rule-based and policy-based reasoning, as a tool for synthesizing cases, how to organize a legal discussion using analysis and reasoning, and how to use precedent in persuasive legal writing, particularly with regard to cases.

Since first appearing in 2002, Bryan Garner's The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style has established itself as the go-to source for all questions of legal style (apart from citation form). The book isn't just one talented man's effort: Garner has two experienced coauthors plus a hands-on team of 54 editorial advisers, most of whom have long and valuable experience teaching LRW. The book is a one-of-a-kind resource--the legal writer's equivalent of The AP Stylebook or The Chicago Manual of Style. The brand-new fourth edition has lots of new material, including an especially helpful new chapter on handling quotations. The two exhaustive indexes (word and subject), plus the detailed table of contents, make it easy to find authoritative guidance within seconds, whatever the question might be. The author, Bryan Garner, is now the most frequently cited author in opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court. It's true: last term, four of his books were cited a total of 14 times (in the somewhat fewer than 90 cases decided). This term the count is on a similar pace. In American appellate decisions generally, Garner is at the top end of sources relied on. You can rely on him, too, in the most comprehensive, nitty-gritty resource available for legal writers: The Redbook. Don't leave home without it.

This book fills an important niche in legal-writing literature by teaching law students how to write scholarly papers for seminars, law reviews, and law-review competitions and how to have their work recognized. It helps novices and more experienced scholars alike to write papers with a minimum of anxiety and a maximum of creativity. Employing a process theory of writing, the text first describes the enterprise of scholarly writing and then discusses techniques for brainstorming topics and theses, researching, drafting, and revising for substance and style. It covers both traditional doctrinal topics and newer areas like empirical studies. There are also chapters on footnotes, avoiding plagiarism, law review practice, and dissemination of student work through publication and submission to national writing competitions. Appendices provide a sample law-review competition paper, answers to in-text exercises, sample syllabi for scholarly writing courses, and a rubric for evaluating and editing scholarly papers and articles.

A standard-setter in American legal education, Writing and Analysis in the Law provides a guide to legal writing, focusing on the importance of clear organization in written communications. Developed as a textbook for a first-year law school course, and is successful in courses for foreign LLM students, the book introduces law students to analyzing and writing about legal authority in cases and statutes. It discusses the structure and persuasive techniques of effective argumentation. The book makes effective use of high-quality and illustrative examples and writing exercises. It also includes access to helpful PowerPoint slides for use in the classroom and class preparation. Lucid, compact, and up-to-date, this work consistently draws acclaim in law schools across the country. The sixth edition has been streamlined and designed to be reader friendly: it uses white space, bullet points, tabulation, and headings that chunk information to enable student to grasp information efficiently.

Cite-Checker: Your Guide to Using the Bluebook, Third Edition, provides students with a comprehensive self-paced guide to citation form according to The Bluebook. This concise paperback is rich with lucid explanations and sound advice and will prove a valuable complement to any legal writing or research course. This practical and pragmatic guide to learning proper citation form features: An easy-to-use, self-paced tutorial to citation form that includes rules, exercises, and answers Explanations of the rules established in The Bluebook along with a complete and thorough overview of citation form A hands-on exercise in each chapter, with answer keys to the exercises included in the text Practice Tips, offering practical advice on using The Bluebook, in every chapter A logical, step-by-step format to help students build confidence with citation skills A bonus section on preparing tables of authorities for briefs and court documents -- a topic not covered in either The Bluebook or ALWD Completely updated to the 19th Edition of The Bluebook published in June, 2010, the Third Edition presents new and revised exercises throughout. This concise, readable paperback offers thoughtful and thorough explanations of important concepts with self-checking exercises that will help students confidently master those concepts.

This User's Guide is written for practitioners (law students, law clerks, lawyers, legal secretaries and paralegals), and is designed to make the task of mastering citation form as easy and painless as possible. To help alleviate the obstacles faced when using proper citation form, this text is set up as a how-to manual with a step-by-step approach to learning the basic skills of citation and includes the numbers of the relevant Bluebook rules under most chapter subheadings for easy reference when more information is needed.--Publisher.

The Bluebook provides the rules for legal citation, but can be intimidating and frustrating to use. With its simple building-block approach, this survival manual teaches how to understand and master the essential rules for legal practitioners. Rules are fully described and illustrated using: clear explanations and illustrations of the basic components of legal citations; step-by-step instructions for building citations to the most common authorities cited by legal practitioners; detailed guidance for citing legal materials to both print and electronic sources; examples, comparison charts, illustrations, and bullet-point explanations designed for quick mastery of basic Bluebook citation rules; tips, hints, and cautions to help users avoid common citation errors; cross references to the controlling Bluebook rules; and a user-friendly format gathering The Bluebook's scattered rules for each authority into one place. The third edition of Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook is thoroughly revised and updated to the 20th edition of The Bluebook, and is an indispensable tool for anyone who is new to legal citation or whose skills need refreshing.

For readers interested in further practicing their citation skills, Linda Barris created Mastering The Bluebook Interactive Exercises, an online learning tool that coordinates with both Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook, Third Edition and The Bluebook, 20th Edition. Each copy of Understanding and Mastering The Bluebook, Third Edition includes a discount code for 20% off the purchase of Mastering The Bluebook Interactive Exercises.