Legal Writing - Scholarly and Professional

This legal writing book is designed to help students learn and remember the basic elements of writing a legal memo. It focuses on the type of assignment that many young lawyers are given, which is to write a memo answering a specific legal question. It discusses each step in completing such an assignment, providing specific instructions and explanations. Students can also use this book as a reference when they begin practicing law.

Legal Drafting in a Nutshell, 5th Edition, provides guidance on producing transactional documents, contracts, instruments, legislation, and regulations that solve existing problems and prevent future problems. The book provides both a large scale, macro overview of the drafting process as well as small scale, micro focused discussion of the mechanics of legal documents at the sentence, word, and punctuation level. The book incorporates current and developing perspectives regarding subjects like plain English, legal typography, and document preparation in the 21st century. This is especially the case in sections of the text dealing with contracts and instruments, although it is true throughout the text. Legal drafting is as much a thought process as a writing process; clear thinking leads to clear drafting. This book is a guide for clear, structured thinking about drafting in order to provide readers with a structured process to follow when assembling useful legal documents.