Adversarial Legal Writing

Adversarial Legal Writing is designed to enhance and build on the legal writing skills you learned in Legal Writing I & II.

It is a one-credit, practice-focused course designed to sharpen the persuasive writing skills lawyers use when advocating for a client. Through short, realistic assignments, you will learn to frame facts strategically, develop compelling legal arguments, anticipate and answer opposing positions, and adapt tone and structure to different audiences and procedural settings (U.S. or U.K. litigation, international commercial arbitration and others).

As a one credit course, although you should expect multiple writing assignments, you will not encounter the longer, complex logical assignments that you encountered in Pericles’ Legal Writing I or II courses.

The course will emphasize clarity, precision, and brevity, with exercises drawn from briefs, motions, demand letters, and other contested matters. The course can be taken either for a grade or credit/no credit.

Legal Writing I is a prerequisite for this course, and Legal Writing II will also help prepare you for it, but students who have not taken another Pericles Legal Writing course may be admitted with professor’s or the dean’s permission.