Help! I haven't written a memo in two years... Forum

[Anonymous User]

and when I did I barely tried for my pass/fail legal writing class. An attorney at my SA has been giving me some research to do and I have been orally relaying my findings, but today he drops the bomb that he wants me to write a short memo on it. How the fuck do I even write a memo without looking like an idiot? I have the research, but actually putting it down is stressing me out because I feel like I've never really done it before.

What are your best memo writing tips??

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

For real, just read the important sections on this book (http://www.amazon.com/Legal-Reasoning-W ... l+research) and look at all the appendicies in the back (sample memos), which are pretty legit. u can digest all all this over this weekend and start writing it monday morning.

[Anonymous User]

Find a memo that attorney wrote. Follow the format. Don't get creative.

[lavarman84]

Find a memo that attorney wrote. Follow the format. Don't get creative.

This. Or ask an associate in the practice group if they have a sample memo that they used for that attorney.

[sprezz]

what they said.

at a general level, and a practical level for someone who might suck at writing memos, best memo writing tips:

1. question & short answer - these are no different than what you're relaying orally, probably. get them down as clearly as you can to increase even slightly the chance that the reviewing attorney just skims the rest of the analysis or can mentally autopilot to fill in any gaps in your logic based on the fact that you foreshadowed enough for them to do that. have a short answer for each question that is concise and clear. "Probably not because _____."

2. full answer ("discussion" or whatever) - just take each step of your reasoning or research and make each one a header in a draft. read them in a row to see if they make sense sequentially, or if there's two that are subsidiaries of another [e.g. #2 (a) and (b)]. move them around until you think they make sense and are in something of a logical order. then, piece by piece, pick a header and show your work. just prove that individual point and move on to your next header. cite liberally to your research, because that's really the value in a summer's research memo (record of relevant case law so associates can review when issue actually materializes in december). you can delete some or all of the headers later to make it look less goofy as necessary (a 2 page memo doesn't need 9 headers). but even if it looks weird your shit will make sense, be in some logical order, and have cites. that's good enough.

3. write a conclusion and cross check it against your short answer. make them consistent. if the writing process made you realize that there are actually 3 issues not 2, then add a question and a short answer for the new issue. basically, just think of all the different sections as ways to check your work in the other sections. (this is what the header rejiggering is doing too, just up front for someone who's struggling putting something down in the first place.)

4. check for typos. smooth out transitions from header to header or section to section, especially if you deleted the headers and they don't serve as built in (albeit abrupt) transitions on their own. check for typos again. aaaand done.

this is not going to have you writing like scalia. but it will help your product look and read like a memo that doesn't suck. as a summer, "not sucking" is a pretty okay outcome.

[logicianwannabe]

Also, don't make it unnecessarily long. Just walk through the analysis and either answer the question presented or explain what the areas of uncertainty are. Never spend more than one or two sentences giving your own thoughts or opinions. A pet peeve of mine is the eager-beaver "think piece" publi policy essay that summer associates sometimes write in response to a memo assignment.