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Your Client's Story: Effective Legal Writing, Third Edition

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Authors
  • Ruth Anne Robbins
  • Steve Johansen
  • Ken Chestek
Series / Aspen Coursebook Series
BOOKMARK
Book length
518 pages
Publication Date
2024-02-09
Edition
Third Edition
Teaching Materials
NO
Description
Table of contents
Preface

Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook with Study Center on Casebook Connect, including lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities. Access also includes practice questions, an outline tool, and other helpful resources. Connected eBooks provide what you need most to be successful in your law school classes.

Every client has a story. Your Client's Story: Effective Legal Writing, Third Edition, shows students how to tell that story effectively. The process of creating client-centered legal communication--from investigating facts and synthesizing the law, to document design--is essential, both for counseling clients and advocating on their behalf. With an engaging style and plenty of examples to illustrate fundamental concepts, this text explores how narrative theory, brain science, and classical rhetoric get to the heart of what makes legal thinking and writing truly effective.

Extending coverage to first-semester Legal Writing, the Third Edition includes

  • Predictive legal writing through the lens of narrative theory 
  • Analogical reasoning with step-by-step explanations of 
    • case synthesis, and
    • applying a rule of law to the facts of your client's case.
  • ​​Updated and expanded coverage of 
    •  logical fallacies,
    •  the foundations of legal reasoning and the legal system,
    • stare decisis, and
    • mandatory versus persuasive authority.
  • Revised organization tracks the process of legal thinking and writing
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Detailed Table of Contents Download (PDF)
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Preface Download (PDF)
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About the authors
Ruth Anne Robbins
Rutgers University School of Law–Camden

Ruth Anne Robbins is a member of the faculty at Rutgers University School of Law (Camden).

Steve Johansen
Lewis and Clark Law School

After receiving his undergraduate degree, Johansen taught in the Oregon public school system while earning his J.D. He was an associate with the Portland firm of Tedesco Wilson working on labor law issues. Professor Johansen has worked extensively with colleagues at the University of Latvia on developing the first Legal Writing program in Latvia. His book, Juridiska Analize Un Tekstu Rakstisana, the first Legal Writing textbook to be published in Latvia, is now in its third edition. In Spring 2002, he was a visiting professor at University College, Cork, in Ireland. He has served on the Oregon BenchBar Commission on Professionalism since 2002. He served on the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute from 1996 until 2008 and served as the Institute's President from 2002 to 2004. He is also a former Chair of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Research, and Reasoning.

Johansen has published articles on the politics of legal writing, interpreting Oregon statutes, and most recently on the ethical limits of storytelling in the law. In addition to his work in Latvia, Johansen is a frequent participant in international legal skills training, including recent projects in the Czech Republic, Kenya, and the United Kingdom. He was the 2009 recipient of the Thomas F. Blackwell Award.

Ken Chestek
University of Wyoming College of Law

Kenneth D. Chestek joined the University of Wyoming College of Law faculty in the summer of 2012. He graduated cum laude from University of Pittsburgh School of Law where he was Editor in Chief of the Law Review. He practiced law for 21 years in Pennsylvania in a variety of settings, from solo practice to managing attorney for a branch office of a large law firm. While in practice, he also served for 18 years as Chief Civil Counsel to Erie County, Pennsylvania.

From 2010 to 2012 he served as President of the Legal Writing Institute, an organization of more than 2700 legal writing professionals in the United States and around the world. Previously, he served as a member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of LWI. From 2005-2008 he co-chaired the ALWD/LWI Annual Survey Committee, and from 2004-2008 he served as a member of the Editorial Board of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, a peer-reviewed academic journal. He has published and given lectures on a wide variety of subjects, including persuasion, teaching methods, tax exemption policy, hospitals and the uses of computers in law offices. His current scholarly interest is in the emerging discipline of Applied Legal Storytelling, which examines the role of narrative reasoning and storytelling in how judges decide cases.

Professor Chestek is one of three co-authors of a new textbook for first-year courses in legal persuasion. All three authors are former Presidents of LWI. The book, Your Clients Story: Persuasive Legal Writing, will be published by Aspen Publishing in early 2013.
Product Information
Edition
Third Edition
Publication date
2024-02-09
Copyright Year
2024
Pages
518
Connected eBook with Study Center + Paperback
9781543840223
Connected eBook with Study Center (Digital Only)
9798892071802
Subject
Legal Writing
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