Customer Reviews

Legal Reasoning and Legal Writing: Structure, Strategy, and Style, Fourth Edition (Legal Research and Writing)

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The text focuses on constructing proof of a conclusion of law and teaches format, style, and grammar collaterally. The goal is to help students learn how to make the
kind of writing decisions that center on the need to prove analysis. Most students have substantial difficulties learning how to construct proof. If format and style
receive primary emphasis, the problem is compounded because the student is invited to mimic the customary appearance of a document, rather than to think through its
content and inner logic. Moreover, format comes easier to students who have already learned the dynamics of proof, and legal writing's heightened requirements of
style and grammar may be easier to accept when they are explained as ways of clarifying proof. And as a skill, style is much more valuable when rewriting second and
third drafts than in producing a first draft.

Part I of the text introduces students to the court and litigation systems, the structure and operation of rules of law, judicial opinions, and methods of briefing them.
Legal writing in general is introduced in Part II. Part III explains how to write an office memorandum; organize proof of a conclusion of law; use authority; analyze
facts; and use paragraphing, style, and citations. Part IV helps students with their first law school examinations. Part V introduces the advocacy skills of theory
development, argumentation, and accurate handling of procedural postures. Writing a persuasive motion memorandum is covered in Part VI; appellate briefs in Part
VII; and oral argument in Part VIII.

I got this book from the law library at school and I am going to buy Mr. Neumann's 2002 edition if there is one.
This is a good book to have for Law School!

I have read many pre-law books. This book explains so much in just two short concisely written chapters. I do have one small complaint the title of this book is wrong, this book covers so much more!

This book is an introduction to law, it explains and provides a general overview of the civil procedure process and goes over case briefing. I think this book is more useful than Helen Shapo's book on Legal Writing. In short, GET IT!

I guess you might expect a 5th edition book on reasoning and writing style to be well written! It is. Designed for 1st year law students, I got it becaause I am not an attny but spend a lot of time reading federal manuals and regulations with a lot of legal reaaoning beneath them, and then interpreting them and writing guidance to what they mean. Also i work in a field where cases regularly go to administrative law judges or where I get decisons back from them, and I also try to act in coordination with decisions in other jurisdictions or case that I am aware of. I found the book very useful. it actually functions as a fairly good working overview of the legal "system" - briefs, opinions, depositions, motions, claims, etc, while focusing most of the course on reasoning and writing per se. Some might might also enjoy the older 1970s book, cited by Neumann, Twining, "how to do things with rules." Books like Neumann on clear reasoning and clear writing are always useful, and this will likely improve your general writing skills as well.

Mr. Newmann, Jr., the author, has captured the essential ingredients of American Common-Law, from it's heritage, rule analysis, and sources of law to it's practical application using lawyerly persuasion with words. Presented is a practical, logical, and understandable book format that supports the applied art of legal interpreting, reasoning, persuasive writing. This book is a must-have for all who desire to analyze facts with rules and then create persuasive or predictive legal written results in legal style.

This is a well-written guide for a first year law student in their first semester of legal writing. It goes into great detail on writing one's first memorandum, with sections on researching, writing the memo, and a paradigm for how to construct a proof of a conclusion of law. However, once I got to writing my first appellate brief, I found that the book devotes a mere 16 pages to actual writing of the brief. This was extremely lacking and provided very little useful guidance as to this important milestone in a law student's career. I had to buy another book on the subject, doubling my expenditures on legal writing texts.

Neumann taught me a lot about legal writing conventions in this book. I can't believe legal writing isn't part of a general curriculum for all college major. It's such a useful subject area for almost all of us.

I started getting into legal writing by using the NOLO books on matters where it wasn't necessary or practical to hire an attorney. As for structure, strategy and style, Neumann's book is supreme. I highly recommend it.