About The Book

This legal writing handbook is for upper-level law students enrolled in a clinic, who are expected to draft legal memorandums, briefs, client letters, and pleadings with minimal supervision. Each chapter focuses on a single writing skill. The exercises and examples consistently and cogently employ the techniques and devices advocated in the book.

Clinical students learn by doing. Still, their legal writing experience is limited, so guiding them through written assignments is challenging. They simultaneously need specific feedback on legal writing from their professors, and the opportunity to do as much as possible on their own. I wrote this handbook with that challenge in mind.

Students can use the book as a tool to help them complete writing assignments without relying too much on their professor. Clinical professors can use the handbook in three separate ways, depending on their students’ needs.