Core Legal Skills Handbook: Legal Research and Writing

The Core Legal Skills Handbook is an excellent textbook or supplement for any Legal Research and Writing class. It is written in a very concise and familiar style that will help students learn what they need to know in the most efficient manner possible.

The first chapter is on sources of law and provides an overview of the statutes, regulations and cases that make up the American legal system. The second chapter covers legal research and explains how to find statutes and regulations, as well as case decisions, on a particular topic. The chapter on reading and briefing cases explains how and why cases are briefed by law students. There is a separate chapter on analogical reasoning and applying a case rule to a fact pattern, and another chapter on analyzing statutes and marshaling facts. The chapter on citation covers how to cite cases and statutes, as well as block quotes, signals and the use of parentheticals. The chapter after citation is on IRAC and IREAC, the structures used to organize the analysis of a legal issue. The large scale organization of a legal memorandum is covered in the next chapter. Other examples of legal writing like client letters and exam answers are discussed next; and advice on how to improve your writing is included as well. Also, at the end of the book there are two additional chapters on persuasive writing: one on drafting a trial memorandum and arguing the memorandum in a trial court motion session, and the other on drafting an appellate brief and arguing the brief in oral argument before court of appeals.

The Core Legal Skills Handbook is also a great book for students to read before attending law school. Success in school is not so much about whether you learn what you need to know as when you learn what you need to know. Read this book and you will get a head start over students who don’t start reading until classes begin.