Preparing the Fake Judge: How to Write Effective Bench Memos for Oral Argument Exercises
“Know your audience.” It’s evergreen legal writing advice. And it’s advice to remember when addressing the very specific audience for the bench memo in an oral argument simulation: a fake judge.
Teaching Judgment in the Face of Uncertainty
I. Navigating uncertainty in legal writing
Developing Professional Identity in First-Year Law Students Through Oral Arguments in the Courthouse
Former Justice William J. Brennan believed “oral argument is the absolutely indispensable ingredient of appellate advocacy. . . . [O]ften my whole notion of what a case is about crystallizes at oral argument. This happens even though I read the briefs before oral argument . . . .
Classroom Strategies to Prepare Students for Oral Argument
Fewer phrases strike more anxiety into the hearts of many law students as oral argument.[1] And they are in good company.
Big Deal: Using Transactional Assignments to Teach Persuasion in the Legal Writing Curriculum
Motions. Briefs. Oral arguments. For students interested in a transactional career, a typical legal writing semester focused on persuasion sometimes feels like it is centered on inconsequential litigation-style assignments. What many students do not realize, however, is that many skills learned in a persuasive semester, including through the context of litigation-style assignments, are transferrable to transactional contexts and help students prepare for careers in transactional practices.