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Small Section Guide - Memo Writing
Small Section Guide - Memo Writing
your professor in mind. Instead, imagine that you are writing for a legal
reader who does not know about the applicable law or your clients case.
This will help you to include necessary background information and better
depth of discussion, and it will make your memo more useful for future
readers.
The law-trained reader In writing your memo, you can assume that
your reader is trained in the law. This has several implications for your
writing. First, it means that you should not explain very basic ideas relating
to law or the legal system, or you risk writing down to your audience. For
example, you would not explain that judges look to previously decided cases
to reach a decision in a new case. Any lawyer will know this basic rule of
stare decisis. However, it is acceptable to emphasize certain aspects of
basic legal concepts to anticipate questions your reader may have about
your analysis. For example, if your issue is not governed by any binding
cases (under rules of stare decisis), you could note that point briefly in your
memo by saying, Because there is no binding authority on point, the court
will look to persuasive sources for guidance. Although that sentence is not
strictly necessary for a law-trained reader, it will prevent an unfamiliar
reader from questioning your work and wondering why your memo
discusses only lower-court cases or secondary sources.
Second, a law-trained reader will have certain expectations about how
you should organize and present information. These expectations come
from tradition, court practice, legal education methods, and pragmatic
needs. Most legal readers are busy, impatient, and skeptical; meeting their
core expectations for a memo will make your document seem familiar,
efficient, and easy-to-follow. This guide summarizes some of the key
expectations of law-trained readers.
Unfamiliar with the law and facts Legal writers generally assume
that their readers know little or nothing about the relevant law or facts and
craft their explanations accordingly. Thus, in writing your memo, you
should discuss the law and facts as if you were explaining the case to
someone new to the area. Also try to make your memo self-contained, so
the reader does not have to look up your sources separately to understand
your explanations. This is especially important if you intend to use your
small-section memo as a writing sample in future, because your potential
employer will be an unfamiliar legal reader who will judge your work by
how clearly you present your information.
Organizing a Memo
Legal readers expect information to be organized in certain ways.
Meeting these expectations will avoid confusion and help an unfamiliar
reader follow your explanations and reasoning more easily. Formal office
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your final memo.) If you do not ordinarily start a writing project with an
outline, be sure to check your organization after you have written your first
draft so that your paper conforms generally to the IRAC order.
Issue: Beginning your discussion of a rule with a thesis sentence will
help your reader focus on whatever aspect of the larger rule or area of law
you intend to discuss and lead the reader through your explanation.
Rule explanation: After stating an issue, the reader will expect you
to identify and explain any relevant rules. It is not enough to merely state a
rule in a sentence or two. Instead, the unfamiliar reader will expect you to
explain that rule. For example, if the rule contains vague words or phrases,
you should define those. You should also explain how the rule works, what
the underlying reasoning or policy is, and perhaps how the courts have used
the rule in the past. If a case example might illustrate any of the rule
aspects that you have discussed, include it briefly and explain how it relates
to your point. Never assume that the meaning and workings of a rule are
obvious. Novice legal writers tend to spend much more time discussing
their facts than they do explaining the relevant law, but for a legal reader,
both aspects of the analysis are important.
Application of the rule to the facts: Only after you have explained
a rule will the reader know which facts are important and which are not. In
your fact-application section, show how the rule applies to the specific facts
in your case. Be sure to detail your reasoning process for the unfamiliar
reader, even if it seems obvious to you. It is not enough to merely recite the
relevant facts and state a conclusion. The reader will expect you to spell
out the connections between rules and facts.
Conclusion: Stating a conclusion at the end of your discussion of an
issue or a sub-issue may seem a bit repetitive, but it ties up the discussion
nicely and helps the reader understand that you are finished with that issue.
If your memo covers only one narrow question or aspect of a rule, you
may apply the IRAC order to your entire discussion. If, however, your memo
covers more than one conceptually distinct question, you may be applying
the IRAC structure more than once within your discussion. It is largely your
judgment call as a writer whether you should IRAC an issue overall or
whether you should IRAC sub-issues as well.
If your issue is complex or if your rule structure contains several
distinct elements or aspects, it may be best to IRAC some parts of the
discussion separately. For example, assume that your memo addresses
whether a prosecutor will be able to prove two of the four necessary
elements of a crime in your clients case. You should first give an overview
of the rule (e.g., list the elements of the crime), then use IRAC to organize
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your explanation of the first disputed element, before using a new IRAC
structure to organize your explanation of the second disputed element. If
you discuss all the rules or facts together (e.g., relating to both the first and
second elements), the unfamiliar reader may become confused.
Presenting Your Content
In deciding what informationand how much detailto include in
your memo, remind yourself again that you are writing for an unfamiliar
reader. If it would be helpful to your reader, give some overall context, use
explanatory transitions, and provide enough detail to show that your
analysis of the law is correct.
Context usually includes background information related to your more
specific issue that helps the reader place any new information in a larger
framework. Context may also influence the meaning and significance of a
particular statement of law or fact, just as it does for non-legal information.
For example, if your legal issue centers on a specific element of a rule, be
sure to tell the reader what the larger rule is first, so she can understand
how your specific discussion relates to that larger rule.
A legal reader will also appreciate clear transitions as you move
through your discussion. Transition words and sentences make your
organization more obvious, guide the reader through the steps in your
reasoning, and show the relationship of new information to old. For
example, you can use obvious transition phrases like the first factor
requires . . . or the second factor requires . . . to remind the reader
where she is within your larger discussion. Using words like additionally,
thus, or however signals to the reader that whatever follows will add to,
follow from, or contrast with whatever came before the transition word.
You should not overuse transitions, of course, but including some in your
writing can be helpful to a busy, unfamiliar reader.
Finally, deciding how much detail to include in a memo about a point
of law or fact can be difficult even for experienced legal writers. Writers
must balance space limitations (and the attention span of a busy reader)
with the need to educate the reader about the law and facts. As a general
rule, legal writers follow the same principles as other writers do: to meet
the needs of the reader, the level of detail and explanation in a document
should depend on complexity and importance. Include more explanation
and detail for complex or difficult points and less for those that will seem
straightforward to your legal reader. Also include more explanation for the
most important aspects of the analysis and less detail for secondary or
minor points.
After you are satisfied with the substance of your memo, check it
carefully for substantive accuracy and mechanical errors. Editing your
legal writing may take longer than you expect, so allow extra time in your
project planning.
For substantive accuracy, check every statement of law or fact against
your original source to confirm that your point is either stated in the source
or follows from it. Be sure you have included a citation to legal authority
after each statement of law.
Mechanical errors can include typos, grammar and punctuation
errors, and citation format problems. Using the spell-checking function of
your word processor is helpful for catching typos, but it will not catch all
misspellings. Remember that a spell-checker will only review your
document for the presence of words that are not in its dictionary. For
example, it will not catch a misspelling of there when you meant to say
their. Also check carefully for grammar and punctuation errors. Use a
style manual if your skills are rusty.