Synthesis and Advanced Legal Writing

Abstract

Legal writing hasn't changed much in the last four years, but the legal world and the legal writing and advocacy book market certainly has. Law schools are responding to massive changes in the legal employment market that call for deeper, more intensive, client-centered, and practice-oriented training in legal writing and advocacy. Law students and legal employers are demanding practice-ready training in lawyering skills. In the new edition of Advanced Legal Writing and Advocacy: Trials, Appeals, and Moot Court, authors Michael D. Murray (Valparaiso) and Christy H. DeSanctis (George Washington) have taken the original text and redesigned it to provide a new focus on modern advocacy that blends rhetoric and storytelling with synthesis and advanced argumentation techniques to make the book a more powerful resource for training practice-ready lawyers. The new chapter - Synthesis and Advanced Legal Writing - links our current research on rule synthesis and explanatory synthesis to the creation of litigation briefs.

Keywords: synthesis, rule synthesis, explanatory synthesis, legal writing, appellate advocacy, rhetoric

JEL Classification: K1, K11, K13, K33