Foundations of Legal Research and Writing

The fourth edition of Foundations of Legal Research and Writing gives equal weight to research and writing making it a perfect resource to be used for both legal research and legal writing classes. An entire chapter providing a detailed explanation of legal reasoning and analysis has been added. Each of the research chapters ends with legal research assignments, allowing the professor to cut down on preparation time. Cyberlaw exercises are included at the end of most of the chapters, requiring students to perform computer-assisted legal research. Another chapter is devoted to computer-assisted legal research and explains the use of citators in detail. This chapter is written by an expert in the field, a law librarian who spent a number of years offering computer-assisted legal research seminars to practicing attorneys. The writing portion of the book devotes entire chapters to writing client opinion letters, pleadings, contracts, office memos, memoranda of law, and appellate briefs. Because the documents are covered in separate chapters, the professor can select the documents to be covered in class. The legal writing chapters contain sample documents, heavily footnoted with writing tips. The writing tips are designed to give the students as much help in their writing as possible. They also help to aid the less-experienced professor. The book contains case excerpts illustrating material introduced in the text and emphasizing the perils of performing inadequate legal research and writing poorly. The excerpts were selected to emphasize to students the importance of good legal research and writing. The book is designed to be professor-friendly by providing information gathered by the authors over the years, and appeals to the inexperienced and experienced professor alike.