{"id":7113,"date":"2009-09-18T09:31:25","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T14:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7113"},"modified":"2009-09-18T09:33:23","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T14:33:23","slug":"mastering-the-art-of-legal-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/09\/mastering-the-art-of-legal-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering the Art of Legal Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"childs\"Wednesday\u00a0night I went to see the movie Julie & Julia<\/em>, which is about a writer, Julie, who blogs about working her way through chef Julia Child\u2019s famed cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking<\/em>, in one year.\u00a0 I loved everything about the movie, and as such, I\u2019m starting off this blog post with a discussion of the movie.\u00a0 (This post was actually originally entitled \u201cBest Brief Awards.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of my favorite scenes was when Julie pulled her first roasted whole chicken out of the oven.\u00a0 I roasted my first whole chicken this summer.\u00a0 Like Julie, who felt like a \u201clobster killer\u201d when she boiled three live lobsters for Lobster Thermidor, I must admit that I felt a bit like an executioner when I ordered my organic hand-fed chicken through our CSA, Backyard Bounty.\u00a0 Guiltily, I asked Farmer Laura how she knows which chickens are ready for slaughter.\u00a0 She said she knows it\u2019s time when the chickens start to bite her.\u00a0 (I guess the lesson there is \u201cdon\u2019t bite the hand that feeds you.\u201d)\u00a0 At home with my chicken, I tried to do the chicken justice by dressing it with olive oil and sprigs of thyme and rosemary from our garden.\u00a0 I felt Julie\u2019s same sense of pride and excitement when I opened the oven door and a perfect golden-brown roast chicken appeared from the oven.<\/p>\n

Watching the movie reminded me of how students develop in their legal writing classes.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Legal writing is, in part, a skills course.\u00a0 Learning how to cook and learning how to write are both skills to be developed.\u00a0 And they both can be learned.\u00a0 No one is hatched from the egg with writing skills.\u00a0 Writing skills, much like chopping an onion (Julia discovered), greatly improve when a person employs easy-to-use techniques.\u00a0 Mastering the art of legal \u201cwriting\u201d also includes mastering the art of legal analysis and research, which is why our first-year course is called Legal Analysis, Writing & Research.\u00a0 To that, I would also add mastering the art of legal reading, which calls for close reading and critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n

At Marquette, we have a number of opportunities for students to take advanced legal writing courses and to practice their legal writing skills in competitions such as moot court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This week at the fall Moot Court Program reception, we recognized two outstanding appellate briefs written by our students in national moot court competitions this past year.\u00a0 Jon Fritz and Dale Johnson wrote the best petitioner\u2019s brief.\u00a0 Their brief was submitted in the August A. Rendigs, Jr. National Products Liability Moot Court Competition, where the team advanced to the semi-final round and won the best petitioner\u2019s brief at competition.\u00a0 Stephen Boyett, Carrie Devitt, and Jessica Franklin wrote the best respondent\u2019s brief.\u00a0 They competed in the ABA\u2019s National Appellate Advocacy Competition, where they advanced to the national finals and placed among the top four teams at the Boston regional competition.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to these students for mastering the art of appellate brief writing and appellate advocacy.\u00a0 As Julia might say, \u201cBien \u00c9crit!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday\u00a0night I went to see the movie Julie & Julia, which is about a writer, Julie, who blogs about working her way through chef Julia Child\u2019s famed cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year.\u00a0 I loved everything about the movie, and as such, I\u2019m starting off this blog post with a discussion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-writing","category-marquette-law-school","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}