Legal Research & Writing
Legal research, analysis, and writing are fundamental lawyering skills. They are learned best when practiced repeatedly. At Colorado Law, we commit to an educational experience that enables our students to learn these skills and to use them competently and ethically. The Law School’s Strategic Plan emphasizes the importance of legal writing and research. Indeed, the Strategic Plan’s second strategic initiative is, in part, “to equip students to research and analyze thoroughly law and policy.”
Objectives of Colorado Law’s Legal Research and Writing Program
Colorado Law graduates will be proficient in legal research, analysis, and writing, and capable of adapting these skills to varying contexts. They will be able to critically assess and edit their own work and to know when to seek guidance, equipping them for the lifelong pursuit of excellence in these fundamental skills.
Upon graduation, our students will be able to:
- Analyze facts, issues, and legal authorities
- Research efficiently and effectively using print and electronic sources
- Identify and use primary and secondary legal authorities appropriately
- Communicate effectively in writing and orally
- Recognize and address ethical issues that arise in the context of legal research, analysis, and writing
- Understand the ways that lawyers use research, analysis, and writing in the lawyer’s varying roles, from counselor to advocate
Academic Requirements
First Year: First-year students participate in two small-section courses: Legal Writing (fall semester) and Appellate Court Advocacy (spring semester). The legal writing curriculum teaches students how to analyze a practical legal problem, and to reduce the analysis to one of the forms commonly drafted by practitioners, such as a letter, a memorandum, or a brief. In the first semester, students work chiefly on the techniques of objective legal analysis, and in so doing they learn to identify and synthesize legal rules by examining authority, to use authority to explain the rule to a reader, and to apply the rule to the facts of a client’s case. The course relies on substantial personal interaction between the professor and her students, and on repeated feedback and reworking of drafts.
In the second semester’s Appellate Court Advocacy course, students learn the techniques of persuading a court to accept a client’s view of the law and facts. This curriculum takes legal analysis to a more sophisticated level, as the student must develop the professional judgment to advocate within ethical boundaries and without straining the lawyer’s credibility with the court. The second semester concludes with each student arguing a case before a mock appellate court.
Upper-division: As a graduation requirement, all students must complete a seminar that includes the preparation of a substantial paper requiring significant legal research and writing. All papers submitted in a seminar are subjected to thorough and individual evaluation by the faculty member and must be rewritten following faculty review before being submitted for a final grade. In addition, to providing students with a wide range of writing experiences, all upper-division courses are designated as writing classes unless otherwise exempted by the Dean or Associate Dean.
Journals
Students who obtain a position on the journals gain an opportunity to sharpen their writing, editing, time management, and leadership skills. Colorado Law’s three journals are managed and edited by students and include the University of Colorado Law Review, the Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy, and the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law.
Competitions
Colorado Law has a number of writing awards, including journal writing awards and the Sandgrund Award for Best Consumer Rights Work. Also, a long list of national legal writing competitions and associated scholarships, including business, environmental, health, and Indian law, are included on the Lewis & Clark site.
