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Minimum Competencies for Legal Writing and Appellate Advocacy (Weresh)
By the end of the first year course in legal analysis, research, writing, and appellate advocacy, students will do the following:
Learning Outcomes Performance Criteria Assessment Tools
LO 1: Identify and apply concepts relating to the legal system of the
United States
PC 1-1: Students will recognize and apply basic concepts of federalism and the three branches of government.
Clickers quiz; In-Class exercises; Writing assignments: Objective memos, Appellate Brief
PC 1-2: Students will recognize, differentiate between, and apply concepts related to sources of law, and explain and/or apply how each is applied and enforced, and how they relate to one another.
PC 1-3: Students will identify and apply concepts related to the basic structure and function of the American court system.
LO 2: Analyze facts, issues, and legal authorities
PC 1-4: Students will recognize and apply basic concepts regarding jurisdiction, hierarchy, and weight of authority.
PC 2-1: Students will appreciate the importance of, and obligation to, gather facts relevant to key legal issues and will employ strategies to gather such facts.
Student conferences;
Skills exercises; Clickers quiz; In-Class exercises;
Writing assignments:
Objective memos, Email assignment,
Appellate Brief, Client letter, Petition, Answer;
Class Participation
PC 2-2: Students will synthesize authorities into legal principles with elements, factors, or conditions, as appropriate.
PC 2-3: Students will strategize legal analysis by taking into account the hierarchy and relative weight of authority as appropriate for the jurisdiction and the client’s particular issue.

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LO 3: Conduct legal research efficiently in print and electronic sources
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PC 2-4: Students will apply synthesized legal principles to the client’s factual scenario, analogizing and distinguishing legal sources to the client’s facts, as appropriate.
PC 2-5: Students will identify, discriminate between, and select appropriate and conventional frameworks for legal analysis, including textbased, analogical, narrative, and policy-based reasoning.
PC 2-6: Students will recognize the range of possible outcomes/solutions for client problems, including reasonable arguments and counterarguments, and will produce reasonable predictions as to the resolution of a client matter, including available alternative courses of action.
PC 3-1: Students will be able to locate, discriminate between, and use basic sources of legal authority, including primary and secondary authority, to select legally relevant and factually relevant sources for a particular issue.
PC 3-2: Students will employ and document effective and efficient research strategies, including the production of research plans and research trails.
PC 3-3: Students will recognize the obligation, and employ appropriate strategies, to update and validate sources.
Student conferences;
Research exercises;
Writing assignments:
Objective memos,
Appellate Brief, Client letter, Petition, Answer,
Drafting Assignment;
Research log;
Honigsburg grid;
Slocum grid
PC 3-4: Students will

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LO 4: Recognize and identify the purpose and form of legal citation and be able to cite in accordance with at least one established, authoritative citation manual.
LO 5: Communicate effectively in writing determine when research has been exhaustive in the jurisdiction, and when it has been exhaustive beyond the jurisdiction, given the time and financial limitations of law practice.
PC 4-1: Students will cite to every legal proposition.
PC 4-2: Students will employ accurate citation format.
PC 4-3: Students will accurately use signals.
PC 4-4: Students will accurately use explanatory parantheticals.
PC 4-5: Students will accurately format quotations.
Student conferences;
Writing assignments:
Objective memos,
Appellate Brief;
Attribution Exercise;
Citation exercises
PC 4-6: Students will accurately use citation formats for embedded sources.
PC 5-1: Students will identify and distinguish between conventional legal documents, including the purpose of a particular document and how the purpose affects content and approach, and be able to craft those documents according to their conventional frameworks.
Student conferences;
Skills exercises; Writing assignments: Objective memos, Appellate
Brief, Client letter,
Petition, Answer,
Drafting Assignment;
Honigsburg grid;
Slocum grid; Grammar diagnostic; CALI exercises
PC 5-2: Students will employ appropriate large-scale organization.
PC 5-3: Students will employ appropriate small-scale organization.
PC 5-4: Students will accurately and effectively communicate legal argument,

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PC 5-5: Students will use topic and thesis sentences and appropriate transitions to create coherence.
PC 5-6: Students will craft legal documents that are clear and concise and that employ appropriate tone and purpose.
PC 5-7: {First Semester –
Document Specific PC}
Students will write a legal memorandum that accomplishes the following: a.
Articulates a thorough and complete question presented that identifies the relevant source of law, legal question, and legally significant facts; b.
Predicts a result for the client; c.
Organizes the discussion section around a synthesized rule of law; d.
Employs a deductive framework for large and small-scale organization
(overview and thesis paragraphs); e.
Explains the law within each analytical element with appropriate detail from the relevant authorities (RE paragraphs); f.
Applies the law clearly and thoroughly, referencing the relevant authority and its relationship to relevant client facts and illustrating analysis and counteranalysis.
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LO 6: Communicate effectively orally
LO 7: Recognize, identify, and address issues of ethics and professionalism.
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PC 6-1: Students will observe law school and court rules, procedures, conventions, and etiquette.
PC 6-2: Students will speak in a clear, concise, wellorganized, and professional manner that is appropriate to the audience and circumstances.
PC 7-1: Students will recognize and apply basic concepts of ethics, professionalism, and civility as they relate to legal writing and integrate professional knowledge, skills, and ethics into judgment.
PC 7-2: Students will recognize and address limits on expertise with respect to legal analysis, research, and conventional forms of lawyering communication.
PC 7-3: Students will recognize and apply the obligation of candor, including the obligation to advance meritorious claims and to present adverse authority, and the prohibition on presenting false information.
Student conferences;
Class Participation;
Oral Argument
Student conferences;
Ethics exercises,
Plagiarism exercise,
Writing assignments:
Objective memos, Email assignment,
Appellate Brief, Client letter, Petition, Answer
(absence of plagiarism and proper attribution, tone, candor, truthfulness), Clickers
Quizzes, Oral
Argument, Peer
Editing, Class
Participation
PC 7-4: Students will recognize and apply the ethical and professional obligations associated with conventions of attribution.
PC 7-5: Students will recognize and apply the principle of allocation of authority between lawyer and client with respect to representation and how that allocation.

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LO 8: Recognize and employ functional and effective strategies for law practice management.
PC 8-1: Students will identify and follow work priorities and scheduling systems related to time and resources in order to achieve objectives.
PC 8-2: Students will memorialize events and communications.
Meeting deadlines for assignments,
Scheduling and
Attending Conferences,
Research Logs, Time
Sheets for Writing
Assignments, Peer
Editing
PC 8-3: Students will record work and bill time effectively and ethically.
PC 8-4: Students will collaborate by working with others to share responsibility and credit.