Top Law Schools

Our LRW brief had two issues. At first, I was just going to use the argument section from one of the issues, but it occurred to me that if I eliminated the argument entirely - and just used the QP's through the Summary of the Argument, I would be at 9 pages. I feel that doing it this way is more engaging. Thoughts?

Additionally, is using a memo over a brief TCR, b/c my legal writing improved dramatically over the spring, and my fall memo would probably be too difficult to fix.

Brief is fine, but I think it's weird to cut out the argument and give them the fluff that comes up front. We were advised to do the reverse, and cut back the fluff to a very short summary of the issue we were presented with in the class, and then put in the excerpt. That way there's context but you still show some analysis.

TFALAWL wrote:Our LRW brief had two issues. At first, I was just going to use the argument section from one of the issues, but it occurred to me that if I eliminated the argument entirely - and just used the QP's through the Summary of the Argument, I would be at 9 pages. I feel that doing it this way is more engaging. Thoughts?

Additionally, is using a memo over a brief TCR, b/c my legal writing improved dramatically over the spring, and my fall memo would probably be too difficult to fix.

Do not cut out your argument section. I edited mine in away that had the facts and two argument sections. I ended up cutting the conclusion and my third argument. Make sure whatever you cut, you keep the section title in and say "intentionally omitted" or something similar.

Try to get a writing sample from your summer job if you can. An LRW brief is probably not going to be a great writing sample.

I cut my LRW memo in half so it was just one issue. It wasn't a good writing sample (my LRW grade was median), but it's doubtful anyone actually read it--multiple callbacks where grades were below many firm's cutoffs.