12 PUTTING LAW SCHOOL INTO PRACTICE 2015
however, you should not adopt the “legalese” that peppers many of the older cases
you will read. Avoid words like “aforementioned,” “wherein,” and “thereby.”
Instead, use common words you hear every day.
While you are learning the language of law, you will also learn new
conventions, techniques, and styles of writing for a legal audience. Students often
have trouble accepting conventions of legal writing,
36
some of which may not
seem to have a better explanation than, “That’s how it’s done.” Legal citations are
an excellent example. The third series of a set of books that publish federal
appellate cases, Federal Reporter, is abbreviated as “F.3d” not “Fed. Rep. 3rd.”
37
There is no real reason to use one instead of the other, except that lawyers use the
first, not the second. Until you learn these conventions, you will feel like a novice,
and experienced lawyers will recognize your work as that of someone new to the
field.
Some conventions have explanations, but those explanations may not be
immediately apparent to you as a new law student. For example, lawyers reading
legal memoranda generally want to understand the relevant law before they read
about your analysis of the client’s facts under that law.
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If you analyze the facts
before explaining the relevant authority, the lawyer may not understand why
certain facts are relevant or why you have dismissed a line of reasoning that may
seem intuitive but has not been followed by courts. Lawyers also want to read the
most important part of the analysis first. Novels save the best for last; legal
documents reveal the best arguments at the outset.
Consider the organization of this letter as an example of reader expectations:
36
See id. (explaining that the language of the law is “somewhat unfamiliar territory for law
students”); but see Kathryn M. Stanchi, Resistance Is Futile: How Legal Writing Pedagogy
Contributes to the Law’s Marginalization of Outsider Voices, 103 Dick. L. Rev. 7, 9 (1998)
(arguing that biases in legal language may hinder the learning of historically marginalized
students).
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The two national citation manuals are the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation (5th ed. 2014)
and The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (20th ed. 2015). In addition to these
national manuals, be sure to follow any citation rules that are particular to the state where
you are practicing. See, e.g., California Style Manual (4th ed., West Group 2000).
38
Legal writing texts use a variety of acronyms to explain this organization. See Coughlin et
al., supra note 32, at 81–85. Among the more popular acronyms are IRAC (for Issue, Rule,
Application, and Conclusion), CREAC (for Conclusion, Rules, Explanation of the rules,
Application of the law, and Conclusion), and CRRPAP (for Conclusion, Rule, Rule proof,
Application, and Prediction). Id. at 82–83. These different labels all point to the same
organizational paradigm: (a) explain the legal point at issue, (b) explain the relevant law,
and (c) explain how your facts fit under the law. See also Terrill Pollman, Building a Tower
of Babel or Building a Discipline? Talking About Legal Writing, 85 Marq. L. Rev. 887, 912
(2002) (comparing the terminology used in various paradigms). Despite their great
usefulness for beginning law students, these acronyms and paradigms are only rough tools,
and they may not be appropriate in more sophisticated writing.