Legal Writing in Context

Book excerpt: Readers of this textbook will learn to think deductively and analogically, to distill the holdings of multiple cases into a coherent legal rule, and to craft a compelling narrative. But beyond the practical how-to of these skills, this book also aims to ground these ideas in their rich and deep theoretical foundations. Professors Susan McMahon and Sonya Bonneau have mined the writings of legal writing professors, legal theorists, cognitive psychologists, and philosophers to produce a text that both teaches students practical writing skills and uses theory to explain why those skills are effective. This textbook is aimed at first-year writing courses in law schools that seek an integrated, analytically-oriented legal writing experience for their students. It may also be used in upper-level writing courses to enhance experiential or skills-based training with a more contextual approach. The teacher's manual and additional materials for instructors are available at legalwritingincontext.com/