Resources for First-Year Law Students

A leader in its field, Basic Legal Research: Tools and Strategies, Fifth Edition, offers consistently clear instruction and a building-block approach. Amy E. Sloan presents her subject in manageable parts that gradually build in complexity. Ideal as a course book or reference, this text offers flexibility and supports instruction in print and electronic research. A wealth of learning aids includes sample pages, examples, checklists, and summary charts.

This addition to the popular Examples & Explanations series uses step-by-step writing samples along with questions and explanations for each component of memos and briefs, giving students accessible information in a hands-on format. Legal Writing: Examples & Explanations is designed to accompany any legal writing text. * Students decide whether examples from memos or briefs meet certain criteria for effectiveness * Authors explain why examples succeed or fail to meet criteria * Several examples for each part of a memo or brief, not just 1 or 2 * Provides practice on concepts students learn in class.

Unlike conventional legal research books that just teach students how to find and use the various sources of law, this book stresses a systematic, practice-oriented approach to acquiring legal-research skills. It presents a simple yet highly effective research strategy that prepares students to efficiently solve the types of complex legal-research problems they can expect to encounter in the workplace. The book includes a section of tips on how to avoid common research pitfalls, as well as a Trouble-Shooting Guide to help students overcome the occasional obstacles that may crop up in their research projects. For these reasons, the book makes an ideal stand-alone text for the first-year legal-research class, as well as an excellent supplementary text for advanced legal-research classes.

Just Memos, adapted from The Legal Writing Handbook, provides focused coverage on the proper way to write a legal memorandum. The authors explain the features unique to memo writing and how to effectively execute these features in practice. Helpful examples are included throughout the book, including both simple and more complex memoranda to give students insight into the expectations for the finished product. Like the authors’ other texts, the authors provide a straightforward, step-by-step approach that is easy for students to understand.

Building on the approach used in the widely adopted Legal Writing Handbook , Just Research uses a process approach to teach students how to use print and electronic sources to research issues governed by state and federal statutes, common law, and constitutional law. In addition, Just Research goes beyond the basics and prepares students for practice by showing them how to research issues governed by court rules and local law and how to locate reliable information about people, places, and things.

Professors Newell and Peterkin deal thoroughly with fundamental grammar skills often overlooked in legal writing textbooks. The chapters in this text cover everything that students should learn in legal writing from spotting issues, to finding and interpreting the law, to writing either an objective or persuasive document for their client or the court. Each chapter provides exhaustive treatment of the topic. The text also provides useful examples and exercises for the reader to test his or her understanding of the topic. The Journey to Excellence in Legal Writing not only contains a thorough explication of legal writing for first-year law students. Upper-level students, practitioners, and judges will also benefit from the instruction contained in these pages. Therefore, this book is the perfect tool for all who wish to learn and improve their legal writing skills.

With Point Made, legal writing expert, Ross Guberman, throws a life preserver to attorneys, who are under more pressure than ever to produce compelling prose. What is the strongest opening for a motion or brief? How to draft winning headings? How to tell a persuasive story when the record isdry and dense? The answers are "more science than art," says Guberman, who has analyzed stellar arguments by distinguished attorneys to develop step-by-step instructions for achieving the results you want. The author takes an empirical approach, drawing heavily on the writings of the nation's 50 most influential lawyers, including Barack Obama, John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Ted Olson, and David Boies. Their strategies, demystified and broken down into specific, learnable techniques, become a detailedwriting guide full of practical models. In FCC v. Fox, for example, Kathleen Sullivan conjures the potentially dangerous, unintended consequences of finding for the other side (the "Why Should I Care?" technique). Arguing against allowing the FCC to continue fining broadcasters that let the "F-word"slip out, she highlights the chilling effect these fines have on America's radio and TV stations, "discouraging live programming altogether, with attendant loss to valuable and vibrant programming that has long been part of American culture."Each chapter of Point Made focuses on a typically tough challenge, providing a strategic roadmap and practical tips along with annotated examples of how prominent attorneys have resolved that challenge in varied trial and appellate briefs. Short examples and explanations with engaging titles -"Brass Tacks," "Talk to Yourself," "Russian Doll" - deliver weighty materials with a light tone, making the guidelines easy to remember and apply.In addition to all-new examples from the original 50 advocates, this Second Edition introduces eight new superstar lawyers from Solicitor General Don Verrilli, Deanne Maynard, Larry Robbins, and Lisa Blatt to Joshua Rosencranz, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Judy Clarke, and Sri Srinvasan, now a D.C.Circuit Judge. Ross Guberman also provides provocative new examples from the Affordable Care Act wars, the same-sex marriage fight, and many other recent high-profile cases. Considerably more commentary on the examples is included, along with dozens of style and grammar tips interspersed throughout.Also, for those who seek to improve their advocacy skills and for those who simply need a step-by-step guide to making a good brief better, the book concludes with an all-new set of 50 writing challenges corresponding to the 50 techniques.