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Home / Courses and Academic Programs / Degree Programs / J.D. Program / First-Year Legal
Research and Writing Program

Introduction to the First-Year Legal

Research and Writing Program

• Program Overview

• The Conventions of Legal Discourse

• Legal Reasoning and Judicial Discretion

• Tension Between the Abstract and the Concrete

• Your Audience
Before you begin your studies in the First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program (LRW), it will help you
to situate the course in the broader context of your legal education and your future law practice. To follow is
a brief overview of the program, and an introduction to several themes that will recur throughout the year.

Program Overview
LRW uses a series of writing, research, and advocacy projects to engage you in the process of legal
reasoning. The course instructs you in basic methods of legal analysis, effective written and oral
communication of your analysis, and essential legal research tools and methodologies.

The first semester of LRW focuses on the writing of two predictive memos, in which you assess the
arguments on each side of the issue and predict which side would prevail. In the spring, you will learn
how to write an appellate brief, in which you present your client's best arguments to a court. For all three
assignments, you will produce both a draft and a final version, the better to respond to feedback and
hone your writing and analysis. In practice, as in LRW, the writing process will help you take your
internal understanding of an issue and make it external, so that you may hold it at arm's length and
examine it critically. As novice lawyers become expert lawyers, they develop greater ability to monitor
their own level of understanding, and may resort somewhat less frequently (although not infrequently) to
a formal written product like a predictive memo. Nevertheless, even when they eschew a formal written
memo, they continue to apply the same analytical steps that are required to complete the writing
assignments you will undertake in this course.

Lawyers cannot provide effective representation unless they master the necessary research skills. At a
minimum, lawyers must be able to find and update the constitutional provisions, statutes, regulations,
and cases that determine their clients' rights and obligations. To that end, the legal research component
of LRW will introduce you to core tools and methodologies that will be essential in your internships next
summer, as well as in your future law practice. Indeed, without such skills you will have a difficult time
satisfying your employers and competing with fellow students in summer practice and the early years of
law practice. More advanced research instruction is available in upper-level elective courses.

LRW's learning model depends on the substantial feedback that we provide on your work. LRW will likely
be the first law school course in which you receive any feedback on written work, and it will be the
course in which you receive the most individual feedback by far. Keep in mind that our goals for your
achievement are quite high, in keeping with your potential. Our feedback will naturally focus on areas for
improvement, so you ought not interpret this emphasis negatively. Our feedback is intended not to
discourage you, but to facilitate your learning.

LRW meets weekly in the fall and spring semester of your first year. LRW is graded Honors, Pass, Low
Pass, and Fail.

All LRW sections comply with the recommended HLS grade distribution: 37 percent Honors; 55 percent
Pass; and 8 percent Low Pass/Fail.

In the fall semester, you will complete two major writing assignments. The first is a "Closed Memo," in
which you write a predictive memo based on a set of research materials that are provided for you. The
second is an "Open Memo," in which you must research the applicable law and write a predictive memo
based on your own research.

In the spring semester, the major course assignment is the First-Year Ames Moot Court Program.
Working in pairs, you will research and draft an appellate brief concerning a simulated case set in a
federal or state appeals court. At the end of the semester, you will argue your case before a three-judge
panel. Judges are drawn from Harvard Law School faculty, practicing lawyers, and upper-level law
students.
 With this course overview in mind, we turn next to a discussion of several recurring themes in LRW.

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The Conventions of Legal Discourse

Any discourse community has its own discourse conventions, and lawyers have done a particularly
thorough job of developing theirs. LRW is intended to familiarize you with these discourse conventions.

LRW introduces you to the generally accepted modes of legal reasoning: rule-based reasoning;
analogical reasoning; and policy reasoning. As you progress through the course assignments, you will
see the interdependence among these three modes of legal reasoning. When LRW turns to advocacy,
you will learn how lawyers use narrative devices to complement the conventional modes of legal
reasoning and make their arguments more persuasive.

Discourse conventions govern not only the modes of argument, but also the authorities that frame the
argument. You will learn what types of materials constitute acceptable sources of authority in legal
discourse, as well as the different hierarchies within which those authorities exist.

Most concretely, LRW will introduce you to two basic forms through which lawyers communicate their
legal reasoning. You will learn the conventions applicable to a predictive memo and an appellate oral
argument.

Of course, you will be learning the conventions of legal discourse in all of your first-year courses, indeed
in all of law school. LRW, however, is intended to focus very specifically on the conventions themselves,
more so than in your other courses.

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Legal Reasoning and Judicial Discretion

Throughout your legal education, you will encounter a debate over the role of judicial discretion in
adjudication. At the extremes, some would suggest that adjudication is rationally constrained by the
available legal authorities, while others would argue that adjudication is effectively constrained only by
the judge's own beliefs and values. LRW is not intended to resolve that debate. Nevertheless, your work
in this course should illustrate several different concepts about the degrees to which legal authorities can
constrain judicial discretion.

Over the course of the year's projects, you should see that a series of authorities applying the same rule
can restrict--at least to some degree--the decision in a future situation governed by that rule. For
example, if a statute says "No vehicles in the park," and the state's highest court interprets the statute to
mean no "motor vehicles," you can be pretty sure that the statute won't prohibit you from riding your
elephant through the park.

One might think that the ever-increasing number of decisions necessarily increases the degree of
constraint. That may be so in some situations, but several factors can have a destabilizing influence.
One such factor is the contingent nature of language. You may have seen in other contexts, and you will
surely see in your legal career, that saying more about a topic often creates more uncertainty, not less.
Each new opinion creates the potential for misstatement and misunderstanding, enabling future lawyers
to reinterpret the pre-existing rule. A second destabilizing factor is the social context of our legal system.
Authorities rest on a foundation of policy, of societal goals and values, even if those values are not
 always stated explicitly. As societal goals and values shift, a body of law resting on the discarded goals
and values may become obsolete, and eventually reoriented in support of a new rule.

Finally, you should recognize that the limits on judicial discretion are often less substantial than they
might seem at first. Each of the major projects in LRW should demonstrate that, with regard to a given
legal problem, there is usually more than one possible outcome, even if one outcome seems more likely
than the others. Skilled lawyers read authorities with a critical eye, constantly on the lookout for the gap
of ambiguity within a seemingly solid wall of legal authorities.

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Tension Between the Abstract and the Concrete

To complete any substantial task of legal analysis, the lawyer must at some point bridge the boundary
between the abstract and the concrete. Rules rarely, if ever, cover every situation imaginable. For
example, the "No vehicles in the park" statute could simply list every make and model of car and truck in
existence, to clarify that they are all prohibited from the park. But the rule would be unmanageably long,
and new makes and models would come into existence after the rule's enactment. So the drafters would
instead choose a term to describe the category of situations to which their rule was addressed. Rules
that denote categories rather than specific situations necessarily involve a degree of abstraction,
whether a moderate degree (e.g., "motor vehicle") or a substantial degree (e.g., "best interest of the
child").

Fortunately for us, this inherent uncertainty is one of the things that makes law practice a creative
endeavor. For example, if the vehicles in the park statute referred to "motor vehicles," would that include
airplanes? Mopeds? Golf carts? The "Segway" personal scooters? Lawyers and judges would try to use
the policies underlying the rule and analogies to prior decisions to decide each example. But the jump
from abstract to concrete would involve a measure of uncertainty, and it is this uncertainty that allows
lawyers to make plausible arguments on both sides of a case.

[back to top]

Your Audience
In the oral and written communications that you undertake in this course, you must focus not only on the
substantive ideas that you try to communicate, but also on the way in which your audience will receive
those ideas. Communication is a two-step process, and even brilliant arguments suffer if the audience is
distracted by substandard prose. That is why the feedback in this course will consider the form and style
of your writing.

Additionally, you must recognize that your audience has a particular task before it, and will be using your
communication (i.e., your memo, brief, or oral argument) as an instrument in completing that task. The
audience's task will often be to decide how to advise a client or rule in a case. To be effective, your
communication must be suited to your audience's needs. So in a memo addressed to an attorney who
must decide how to advise a client, simply stating your prediction is not enough. You must also help the
attorney understand the applicable legal standard and its likely application, as well as any plausible
counter-arguments and the reasons why those arguments would not prevail. Only then will your
communication allow the attorney to make an informed decision about how to advise the client.

You are at the start of a fascinating journey. We in the First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program
wish you great success and enjoyment as you begin your legal education.
 [back to top]

J.D. Program

• Programs of Study
• First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program
o Course Description
o Introduction
o Statement of Rules and Understandings
• J.D. Admissions and Financial Aid
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How to Research & Write a

Legal Research Paper
There is an art to writing legal research papers. Although somewhat
intimidating to the novice, once you learn the basics, writing legal
research papers is no more difficult than writing a term paper.

First of all, you need to know how to conduct legal research. There are
a number of websites which can assist you. Fee-based web research
companies include Lexis and Westlaw. These companies allow you
access to court opinions (state and federal), statutes, rules of court,
Shepardizing of cases (discussed further later in this article), and other
valuable sources for inclusion in legal research papers. There is also a
large number of websites which can provide this information for free,
such as Findlaw. United States Supreme Court cases and opinions are
available through Findlaw.

Second, determine what kind of research paper or essay you are

writing. The different kinds of legal papers can include: briefs for class
assignments, analytical papers (term paper type), bar exam format
papers, appellate briefs, and actual legal document filings. The first
three types mentioned will be discussed here.

Class Assignments and Bar Exam Essays

If your assignment includes reading and briefing one or more court
cases, the method of briefing is easy to remember with the acronym
"IRAC". The acronym "IRAC" stands for (1) Issue; (2) Rule; (3)
Argument; and (4) Conclusion.

• ISSUE

In order to determine what the issue is, you need to know the parts of the
case that are in dispute. Often, facts are included in essay questions which
are irrelevant but are a trap for the unwary. These types of mistakes are the
result of "red herrings." Bar essay exam questions often have many facts that
can sidetrack writers. The term red herring is used because there is no such
thing as a red herring, thus the name to denote a false issue. The issue of a
case is based on the pivotal questions which will determine the outcome.
When you write about the issue in law school assignments or bar exam essay
questions, it should be in the form of a question (e.g., "Did the Plaintiff
commit a material misrepresentation?").
• RULE

The rule in a case is the law or laws which govern the outcome of a case. For
example, if the case involves a failure to comply with the Miranda rule, you
would want to cite the Miranda case citation and mention cases which the
United States Supreme Court has decided since Miranda which modify strict
adherence to the original Miranda rule. Rules can include administrative rules,
statutes, codes of conduct, case opinions, executive orders, Attorney General
opinions, IRS memorandum opinions, and other guidelines.
• ARGUMENT

The argument is where you use your knowledge and sources in applying the
rule to the particular set of facts presented. For example, using the Miranda
case previously mentioned, you would argue whether the failure of a police
officer to give a suspect a Miranda warning would bar any admission made by
a suspect. Here's an example of an argument: "While the defendant was not
given a Miranda warning by police, his record of prior arrests and convictions
where he was given the Miranda warning put the defendant on notice of his
right against self-incrimination."
• CONCLUSION

The conclusion is essentially your judicial opinion about the outcome of the
 case as you have discussed it in your paper. Basically, you are "issuing a legal
opinion." The other type of legal writing is the regular term paper type. The
following information is a crash course in legal citation. If you intend to cite a
case in any legal research paper, you should know how to "Shephardize" a
case. Shephard's is a book which contains a history of all appellate cases
decided after the opinion you are citing. In essence, was the case overruled
on appeal? Affirmed? Modified?
• Citations

Here are some basic citation examples. Note that the first number in most
citations refers to the volume number of the source and the subsequent
number(s) is the page number(s). For a basic tutorial in how to cite sources
in custom legal papers, check out the website at law dot cornell dot edu.
• LAW JOURNAL

Robert F. Nagel, How Useful is Judicial Review in Free Speech Cases? 69

Cornell L. Rev. 2302 (1984).

• COURT RULES

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) = Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

CASE CITATION (Shephardized)

Children of Bedford, Inc. v. Petromelis, 77 N.Y.2d 713, 726-727, 573 N.E.2d

541, 553, 570 N.Y.S.2d 453, 464 (1991), vacated, 1242 S.Ct. 859 (1991).
• STATUTES

42 U.S.C. § 405(a) (2000)

Law Research Paper

A Law Research Paper consists of a variety of topics linked to the field of social
science and law. Law Research Papers involves a great deal of research and are
quite cumbersome for new learners.

Law Research Papers can be prepared through both qualitative and quantitative
being carried out by both novice and seasoned researchers or students in many
different spheres of law.
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions

Writing a legal paper is a skill any law student or lawyer needs to possess.
Writing makes up a much larger component of the practice of law than being in a
courtroom ever will. Many cases are won or lost at the writing stage and law
students grades are evaluated by their ability to write a clear legal paper. A legal
paper is designed to both inform and persuade the reader, so is has to be clear,
logical and forceful. Below are some strategies for writing a solid legal paper.

Things You'll Need:

• A clear, well-researched issue of law to write about A legal citation

manual, typically known as the Bluebook Black's Law Dictionary

Instructions

1. Step 1

Know your legal issue. A common mistake made by some law students is
writing about a legal issue that is far too broad. Writing a legal paper about
homicide is far too broad and isn't practical. Make sure that your topic is
narrowly focused. Writing about the legal elements for criminal involuntary
manslaughter in the state of Ohio is a manageable topic.

2. Step 2

Know the facts in your case. Typically people write legal papers to show the
court how previous cases and laws apply to a current case. Consequently,
you have to know the facts of your case thoroughly, otherwise you will not be
able to articulate how the law applies to those facts.

3. Step 3

Do your research. Nothing destroys the credibility of a legal paper faster than
poor research. Always begin your research by looking for U.S. Supreme
Court cases that are on point with your topic. From there, research case law
in lower courts until you have a solid understanding of the state of the law as
it pertains to your topic. Use a legal research Web site such as Findlaw.com
or Lexis.com to aid your research. A local law library is an invaluable asset for
conducting research. Research is time-consuming and occasionally arduous,
but its importance cannot be overstated.

4. Step 4

Write the preliminary sections of the paper. This consists of a brief

introduction, whatever procedural statements your particular court requires
and a summary of the facts of your case. The fact summary is crucial
because it provides the reader a sense of what is at issue. People will better
remember facts if they are presented in chronological order. Imagine that you
are telling your facts as a story to someone. How would you paint the picture
so your listener, or reader, knows what happened?

5. Step 5

Write the body of the paper. This is where your research pays off. You take
the existing law, explain it, apply it to the facts in your case and tell your
reader what conclusion you want them to reach. Do this with the structure of
the paper and with each individual point you want to make.

6. Step 6

Ensure that your paper flows logically by using the CIRAC method. CIRAC
stands for (c)onclusion, rule (i)ntroduction, (r)ule explanation, rule
(a)pplication and (c)conclusion again. Throughout the body of your paper tell
the reader the decision you want them to come to first. Then tell them the
particular law that is relevant, explain what that law is and what it means.
Next, apply the law to the particular facts in your case and explain what that
means for the case. Finally, restate your conclusion.

7. Step 7

Finalize and proofread your paper. Once you have written your paper, edit
and proofread it. Far too many students and lawyers forget this step. Typos,
bad grammar, and poor structure and flow will cost you credibility, regardless
of how impeccable your research is. Remember, this paper is designed to
convince your reader that your view is the correct one. Use a strong writing
style and write in active voice. Also, make sure all cases and laws you
reference are properly cited. Any little mistake can be the difference between
winning and losing so take the time to do it well.

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Tips & Warnings

• Allow plenty of time to conduct research. Research is time-consuming and

you don't want to leave it until the last minute. Allow yourself plenty of time
for editing as well. If you are unsure how to proceed, stop by your local
courthouse and ask to see copies of the briefs they have on file. Looking
over other briefs is a great way get you motivated.
• Never plagiarize another attorney's work. That will cost you the case, and
possibly your license. Never incorrectly use citations. Some judges and
professors are sticklers for proper citations, so take the time to do them
right.