PALE 260 Legal Writing I– 3 hours credit –Students review writing basics, including punctuation, capitalization, grammar and correct formatting of correspondence and legal documents. The course incorporates fundamentals of legal writing and analysis of cases. Students learn to prepare professional legal correspondence, legal case briefs and other written legal documents.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students completing this course, students will be able to:
- Distinguish between and use the various manual legal research resources.
- Brief a moderately complex legal case.
- Know the basic components of a reported case and related terminology, as well as the relationship between the headnotes and the various digests.
- Know other basic terminology, including annotation, slip law, advance sheets, parallel cite, and official and unofficial reporters.
- Know how to read a case and how precedence works with respect to case law.
- Understand how to frame issues in terms of fact and analyze a case.
- Define and compare pertinent evidentiary concepts, e.g., relevant and material, direct and circumstantial, competent and credible, opinion and hearsay, and admission of party opponent and declaration against interest.