paralegal student

[mel7540]

Hi my name is Melody and I'm a first time paralegal student. I'm taking night classes and I'm taking Case Analysis and Reasoning and Corporate Law. I was told that Case Analy. and Reasoning is a bit too much for a first semester student with no knowledge of law. I'm wondering if my advisor just thru me into a class without any real consideration to my needs. My teacher is very nice and he's helpful but as a former lawyer (practiced for 20 years before teaching) he's very strict and insist on learning by doing. I believe that the approach is good but I'm somewhat lost when it comes to brief writing which is what we'll be doing throughout the course. My questions is this: Where can I go to get brief writing basics? Is there like a brief writing for dummies? I serious about this because I'm somewhat lost. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

mel7540@yahoo.com

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Another old question but let us answer it if we can. Brief writing is something that one should do after they have experience in reading cases. It's the first thing that you do in law school. At the same time there are legal writing classes that give you the basics for understanding how to write in legal form and that may be found in a book. The basic concept is known as IRAC, also known as:

ISSUE -- RULE -- APPLICATION -- CONCLUSION

When you write a brief you first state the issue. Afterwards, begin by citing the rule of law you plan to apply. Then, apply the rule to the issue and subsequently form a conclusion after you've gone through the legal argument in the application section.

As you can see at this law school, this is a tip on how to answer law school exams and is the key to brief writing in general.

http://www.law.depaul.edu/library_resources/asp/evening_students/tips_evening_exam_tips_3.asp

Originally posted by mel7540
Hi my name is Melody and I'm a first time paralegal student. I'm taking night classes and I'm taking Case Analysis and Reasoning and Corporate Law. I was told that Case Analy. and Reasoning is a bit too much for a first semester student with no knowledge of law. I'm wondering if my advisor just thru me into a class without any real consideration to my needs. My teacher is very nice and he's helpful but as a former lawyer (practiced for 20 years before teaching) he's very strict and insist on learning by doing. I believe that the approach is good but I'm somewhat lost when it comes to brief writing which is what we'll be doing throughout the course. My questions is this: Where can I go to get brief writing basics? Is there like a brief writing for dummies? I serious about this because I'm somewhat lost. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

mel7540@yahoo.com