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Here's the deal...

I want to use a memo from my current job (small litigation firm) as my writing sample for my 3L (post grad) job search. The memo involves an employment discrimination case.

Of course, I don't want to use the real names of the parties. The defendant is a hospital, which I describe in the statement of facts as "Defendant is a large health care facility." After that I simply refer to them as "the defendant."

How should I refer to the plaintiff (who was our client)?
Should I keep writing "the plaintiff" ???
Or should I use "Plaintiff" (with a capital P perhaps?) in lieu of a name, so I would write "It appears that Plaintiff's only chance of recovery is...."

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated!

.

bwv812 wrote:You know you have to ask your employer if you can use it, right? If she says yes (which is questionable), she will likely tell you what editing needs to be done in order to make it sufficiently unidentifiable.

+1

bwv812 wrote:

reverendt wrote:Here's the deal...

I want to use a memo from my current job (small litigation firm) as my writing sample for my 3L (post grad) job search. The memo involves an employment discrimination case.

Of course, I don't want to use the real names of the parties. The defendant is a hospital, which I describe in the statement of facts as "Defendant is a large health care facility." After that I simply refer to them as "the defendant."

How should I refer to the plaintiff (who was our client)?
Should I keep writing "the plaintiff" ???
Or should I use "Plaintiff" (with a capital P perhaps?) in lieu of a name, so I would write "It appears that Plaintiff's only chance of recovery is...."

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated!

You know you have to ask your employer if you can use it, right? If she says yes (which is questionable), she will likely tell you what editing needs to be done in order to make it sufficiently unidentifiable.

Yeah I'm gonna ask him tomorrow.
He probably won't care what I do with it as long as I redact the party names.

I redacted my writing sample from a judicial internship as follows:

XXXXX ("Plaintiff") brought an FTCA claim against the United States for . . . .

You can just ctl+f the plaintiff's name and replace all with Plaintiff. Of course, make sure to read it over.

bwv812 wrote:You know you have to ask your employer if you can use it, right? If she says yes (which is questionable), she will likely tell you what editing needs to be done in order to make it sufficiently unidentifiable.

CR

steve_nash wrote:

bwv812 wrote:You know you have to ask your employer if you can use it, right? If she says yes (which is questionable), she will likely tell you what editing needs to be done in order to make it sufficiently unidentifiable.

CR

As predicted, I asked him today. He said "Yeah, whatever....that's fine."

Correct me if I am wrong, but when you write for a judge and the writing is filed, there really is no need to remove the names of the parties. That information is typically public.

Of course, ask permission.

NDFI wrote:Correct me if I am wrong, but when you write for a judge and the writing is filed, there really is no need to remove the names of the parties. That information is typically public.

Of course, ask permission.

No, not necessarily. Some judges will write their own opinions after reading your research memo. Also, even if they use your piece they end up signing their name to it, not yours. So even if the document that gets published is essentially the same, yours never actually gets published.

Take away point: you STILL need to ask for permission to use it.

.

bwv812 wrote:

Bosque wrote:

NDFI wrote:Correct me if I am wrong, but when you write for a judge and the writing is filed, there really is no need to remove the names of the parties. That information is typically public.

Of course, ask permission.

No, not necessarily. Some judges will write their own opinions after reading your research memo. Also, even if they use your piece they end up signing their name to it, not yours. So even if the document that gets published is essentially the same, yours never actually gets published.

Take away point: you STILL need to ask for permission to use it.

I thought he was talking about documents that get submitted to the court, not documents/opinions issued by the court. If the latter, you can never take responsibility for opinions, as the judge is always the author. There is probably a similar stance on submissions to the court, unless you are named as counsel/submitter of the document.

Each judge is different. Some will let you use the order you drafted.