Increasing Your Brain Power

Students in the first-year legal writing courses are right now handing in their first full length memos. Learning this new memo writing skill is usually a moment of some anxiety for students, as the analysis, form, and structure of a legal memo is quite different from other types of writing.

The most important word in the previous paragraph is the word skill. Legal writing is a skill, and as a skill, it can be developed through hours of deep practice, according to The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.

The Talent Code starts with the question of how and why some environments, whether they are formal coaching programs or even informal family dynamics, produce people with exceptional skill sets.

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A Non-terminal Man

I was asked to talk about the law’s view of the case of Dan Crews, age 27, who wants to die as soon as possible. You may have read about him last fall in the Journal-Sentinel, and in spring in the Chicago Tribune as the story unfolded. You might hear about him on the WISN 10 o’clock news on Sunday, November 6.

Dan has had quadriplegia since a traffic accident when he was three years old, and uses a ventilator because his chest muscles don’t allow him to breathe on his own. He’s mentally sharp, and verbal since the ventilator is attached through a trachea tube. He has earned an AA degree.

He wants to switch off the respirator so he will stop breathing. Specifically, he wants help from Froedtert Hospital, where he has received his care over the years, to switch off the respirator.

My totally unscientific poll revealed that the well-settled law in this area is about as well-known as speed limits. Dan has a right to refuse medical treatment, and no one thinks the use of a respirator is anything other than medical treatment.

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On Dazzling Topic Sentences

[Editor’s Note:  This month faculty members share their favorite brief writing or oral argument tip.  This is the second entry in the series.]  In the theme of the Faculty Blog’s topic of the month, the best brief-writing tip I have received is to spend a lot of time crafting excellent topic sentences.

We all know that topic sentences are extremely important. Together, they comprise a brief’s skeleton, without which the lawyer’s argument cannot take shape. They reflect the brief’s essential points, and clarify the relationships between its paragraphs. A reader should be able to understand the basic contours of the brief’s argument by reading nothing more than the topic sentence of each paragraph.

There are a couple of easy ways to improve the quality of topic sentences. First, make sure that all of your most important arguments make their way into one of them. Doing so improves clarity by enhancing the visibility of the key arguments. Second, reading only the topic sentences, ask whether they logically fit together, and make changes to the extent that they do not. This technique helps to ensure that the brief is well-organized and flows smoothly. Finally, as with all aspects of legal writing, prioritize simplicity. Focus on clarity and directness so that the topic sentences can effectively communicate your most important points.

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