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Legal Research, Analysis, and Writing (5th Edition)

Yvonne Ekern , Santa Clara University Follow Joanne B. Hames , Santa Clara University Follow

Yvonne Ekern (Author)

Joanne B. Hames (Author)

Description

Legal Research, Analysis, and Writing, Fifth Edition, covers the basics of legal research, analysis, and writing, bringing together all the essential knowledge and tools students need to research and analyze a legal problem and communicate the results in diverse forms of legal memoranda. The text’s teaching and learning resources include an Instructor’s Manual, PowerPoint lecture slides, and Test Bank.

978-0133495034

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Law | Legal Education

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Ekern, Yvonne and Hames, Joanne B., "Legal Research, Analysis, and Writing (5th Edition)" (2014). Faculty Book Gallery . 122. https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/122

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Can legal writing programs benefit from evaluating student writing using single-submission, semester-ending, standardized, performance-type assignments.

John Schunk , Santa Clara University School of Law

As a recent popular book makes clear, people react to incentives, and law students are no different. Law school students often shape their work and study habits according to what they think will help them maximize the grades they receive in a particular course. Law school students study differently depending on what and how their professor will base or calculate their grade. Law school students will prepare differently for an essay examination than for a multiple-choice examination, for a take-home examination than for an in-class examination, and for an open-book examination than for a closed-note examination. In short, how and when students are evaluated helps shape how they study for a particular course.

This essay suggests that this principle applies to legal writing courses as well and that legal writing programs can obtain a number of benefits from altering the traditional way of evaluating student performance in the areas of legal research, writing, and analysis. Many legal writing programs evaluate a student's perfo INTRODUCTION

rmance based on a series of assignments that students write and then rewrite after receiving comments from their legal writing teacher. Over the last decade, some have proposed altering this model by introducing the Multistate Performan

ce Test into the legal writing curriculum or by using traditional objective examinations in first-year legal writing courses.

Based on a three-year experience at Santa Clara University School of Law, this essay suggests that using these principles, those of performance testing and traditional examinations, in a slightly modified form can reap significant benefits for legal writing programs.

In part II,

this essay explains

what this modified concept looks like and how it works, explains how it differs from what many other law schools do, and explains what motivated the Santa Clara legal writing program to try this altemative.

In part III, this essay identifies the numerous benefits that may come from adopting this idea for evaluating student writing. As this essay will illustrate, these benefits were far greater and far more extensive than were anticipated. In part IV,

this essay examines student and teacher reactions to using the kind of assignments described here.

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• Legal Research And Writing

Legal Research And Writing (LAW00051 )

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Did you mean..., diploma of arts and social sciences, art/science collaboration wins waterhouse natural science art prize, unit of study laws4003 advanced legal research and writing (2025).

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Unit snapshot, credit points, faculty & college.

Faculty of Business, Law and Arts

Unit description

Builds on foundational research skills to enable students to employ advanced legal research skills to efficiently and accurately research, identify and retrieve legal and non-legal sources relevant to the resolution of legal issues and advanced techniques of effective written communication.

Unit content

Module 1: Introduction to Scholarly Legal Research and Writing

Module 2: Advanced Legal Research – Tools and Resources

Module 3: Data Collection, Analysis and Interpretation

Module 4: Mapping a Legal Project: The Literature Review

Module 5: Writing Methods and Theories

Module 6: Crafting an Effective Research Paper: Structure, Style and Academic Integrity

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Learning outcomes.

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes . The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

demonstrate advanced knowledge of legal research

demonstrate effective legal research techniques to identify, evaluate, record and manage legal and non-legal materials

employ cognitive skills to demonstrate engagement with advanced research in a specialised area of law to provide solutions to complex problems with intellectual independence

employ advanced techniques of effective written communication and practise academic integrity and ethical behaviour in advanced legal research and writing.

Teaching and assessment

Online (term), prescribed learning resources.

• Prescribed text information is not currently available.
• Prescribed resources/equipment information is not currently available.

Prescribed Learning Resources may change in future Teaching Periods.

Fee information

Commonwealth Supported courses For information regarding Student Contribution Amounts please visit the Student Contribution Amounts .

Fee paying courses For postgraduate or undergraduate full-fee paying courses please check Domestic Postgraduate Fees OR Domestic Undergraduate Fees .

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Please check the international course and fee list to determine the relevant fees.

Courses that offer this unit

Bachelor of laws with honours (2024), bachelor of laws with honours (2025), any questions we'd love to help.

Legal research, analysis, and writing

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