This course is designed for students who have completed Legal Writing I and/or II. If you have not completed Legal Writing I or II, you may also take this class with the consent of the professor. You will enhance and build on the legal writing skills you learned in Legal Writing I and II by adding persuasion.
Lawyers use persuasion daily. We must convince the office manager to purchase new equipment, our colleagues to hire a new attorney, our clients to take a particular action, or a court to rule in our client’s favor.
In Legal Writing I and II, the focus was on objective writing. In Adversarial Legal Writing, you will learn to switch from objective to persuasive writing. You will utilize a form of IRAC, called CREAC, to complete assignments. You will also learn to change objective language into persuasive language designed to sway a court or arbitral tribunal. As in Legal Writing, we will do exercises in class to assist and encourage you to write persuasively. In addition, you will be completing writing assignments, such as demand letters or emails, at home based on hypothetical cases. Since this is a short, 1-credit course, the writing will not be as intense as Legal Writing. Your grade, however, will be based on the assigned homework. Since this is an elective course, you can opt to take it credit/no credit, but you must still complete the homework assignments to get credit for the course.
