Strategic Legal Writing

Description: Many legal writing texts emphasize how one writes; this book is unique because it also focuses on why one writes. Every chapter challenges the reader to write to achieve a strategic objective. Each assignment has been carefully considered by the authors, and fully vetted to simulate the decision-making involved in the preparation of important legal writing, whether in a general counsel's office, a law office, a government attorney's office, or a judge's chambers. Simply put, the authors' approach is that effective legal writing does not exist in a vacuum. This book provides practical assignments that teach the student that the best legal writing is not an end in itself, but a means to a larger strategic objective.

Contents: 1. Prayer at the athletic banquet; 2. How to draft a complaint; 3. Terminating Professor Melton; 4. How to draft a motion; 5. Mr Blaustein's gift; 6. How to respond to a motion; 7. Counseling Dean Covelli; 8. How to draft a judicial opinion; 9. Advising Professor Melton; 10. How to draft a motion for summary judgment.

Author Biography: Prior to and during his law teaching career, Donald Norman Zillman served as Judicial Clerk for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and a U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps' officer and was third in command as Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Arizona. As an educator, Zillman taught at the Law Schools at Arizona State University and the University of Utah before coming to the University of Maine Law School as Dean. His primary teaching areas have been torts, constitutional law, energy law, military law, and legal writing. He has also taught as a visiting professor in the United Kingdom and at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has lectured around the world. As an administrator, Zillman served as Dean of the University of Maine Law School from 1991-98. He returned to the Law Faculty where he remains the Edward Godfrey Professor of Law. Zillman served as Interim Provost and Academic Vice President at the University of Maine in 1999-2000 and Interim President of the University of Maine at Fort Kent in 2001-02. Since 2006 he has been President of the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Zillman has co-authored ten books and been sole or co-author on over 50 scholarly journal articles. He has presented papers to academic and professional groups on over 40 occasions. Evan J. Roth graduated from Tufts University in 1982, where he earned his B.A. summa cum laude and was recipient of the Houston Scholarship in economics. Roth then spent the next year working for National Public Radio in Washington, DC, before attending the Georgetown University Law Center and earning his J.D. cum laude. At this time, he was also a member of the journal Law and Policy in International Business, and from 1986 to 1987 was Judicial Clerk for the Honorable W. Eugene Davis, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Lafayette, Louisiana. From 1987 to 1994, Roth was litigation associate for the law firm of Williams & Connolly in Washington, DC, and was senior associate on a litigation team that won millions of dollars for its clients as well as obtained the first reported judgment upholding a copyright on a national monument. Since then, Roth has served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Portland, Maine, and is the Affirmative Civil Enforcement Coordinator, responsible for policy and litigation of all federal cases in the District of Maine seeking civil recovery for health care or procurement fraud. He is also the primary advisor for the U.S. Attorney's Office regarding heath care privacy, federal HIPAA regulation, and Substance Abuse Confidentiality Regulations of 42 C.F.R. Part II. He is responsible for defending the United States in civil litigation in areas such as medical malpractice, personal injury, recovery of stolen property, Privacy Act/Freedom of Information Act, immigration, constitutional claims against federal officers, judicial review of administrative decisions, and labor and employment discrimination. He has received Special Achievement Awards from the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.