Law For The Rest Of Us

Legal memoranda, like legal briefs, are usually written in a formulaic fashion, following certain rules that make is easy for a judge or other legal professional to digest the document quickly. Legal memoranda usually provide the underpinnings for most legal briefs. So, whether you need to prepare a memorandum or brief or merely need to decipher one, it may be helpful to know that most memoranda and briefs follow the same format. A very simple legal brief format follows this discussion. The format is called IRAC, which stands for Issue, Rule, Analysis/Argument and Conclusion. The following further explains the format. Issue In a clear and succinct manner, state the issue at hand. The issue can be formulated as a heading such as: “Whether the statute of limitations prohibits the cause of action for negligence by the plaintiff.” This may be how you see the issue stated in a legal brief. This heading is numbered and centered on the page as are all the subsequent headings. ...

wikimedia commons official portrait My household is abuzz over retired Justice John Paul Stevens' book, Six Amendments: How And Why We Should Change the Constitution. (Little, Brown & Co.) Run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore or Amazon, and plunk down the $20 or so it will take to buy it. This is a first. This is the first time a retired Supreme Court Justice has published a manifesto, if you will, on our Constitution. And in my humble opinion, this book, while short, opens a much needed dialogue on the need for Constitutional change by amendment in this county. The book is short and covers a number of topics, campaign finance, gerrymandering and perhaps the most important, and most controversial, the death penalty and the right to bear arms. Stevens would add words to the Second Amendment to read, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed." He writes: Emotional claims t...