23) The overall conclusion contains a summary of the main points of your analysis. In the section of your application, you may be grappling with areas of uncertainty in legal doctrine and/or competing policy justifications. You may also have had to deal with a seemingly contradictory set of facts: some seem to meet the requirements of the rule; Others suggest that the rule is not being followed. You may have weighed the arguments against the counter-arguments. After doing all this, you need to take a stand and make a statement about how the court will apply the law. In view of the more detailed short answer, the author has opted here for a brief reformulation of the final conclusion. (4) The author of this note has been careful not to use language that presupposes an answer to the legal question he has raised. Since the question referred for a preliminary ruling seeks to clarify whether the facts indicate the existence of a formal offer of contract, you would not use the term `offer` to formulate the question, that is: They would not write: “Does an advertising circular describing goods constitute an offer when it offered the goods for sale at a particular time?” because the wording of the question is based on a legal conclusion – that the conduct in question meets the requirements of an offer. Instead, reserve your legal conclusions (in this case, whether the ad was a formal offer or not) for the short answer part. Finish the memo with your general conclusions about the client`s situation regarding the topics you are discussing. If necessary, type Be concise and clear in your conclusions. Be realistic with recommendations and conclusions about the client`s situation – avoid being too positive or negative.
You can sign the memorandum with your name. You can include a conclusion in the Facts section, or you can create a conclusion at the end that is a summary of the memorandum. It should also include a brief overview of the legal analysis. Although the “Question Asked” section is short, it should (i) contain a concise reference to the legal claim and relevant doctrine, and (ii) contain the most legally important facts of your case. A comprehensive and balanced question is concise – it immediately goes to the heart of the legal question – and directs the reader to the real context. This statement section deals with the objective presentation of customer information. The Facts section contains the relevant facts that you used to prepare and research the memorandum. The list of customer information and facts means that the reader is accessing the same information as you.
This avoids confusion. 8) The factual part contains all the factual premises on which your subsequent legal analysis is based. Of course, all the facts cited in the application section (the “A” in RAIC or CRRACC) of your discussion must be presented as part of the story told in the facts section. 10) Be sure to indicate in your facts section what legal claims are being considered or made, and describe any legal proceedings that have already taken place. It is useful to create a table of contents for the reader. A breakdown of approach, structure and analysis allows the reader to quickly and easily find specific parts of the memorandum. The SEO style used by ANU College of Law is the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC4). Co-produced by the Melbourne University Law Review and the Melbourne Journal of International Law; AGLC4 is used by lawyers, academics and students across Australia for legal texts. This guide helps you apply AGLC4 rules by providing examples and a basic explanation of the rules. You should refer to the full version of the AGLC if something is unclear. Also pay attention to your reader, as this will affect the language you use to communicate your argument.
The style should be formal and professional, and the language and tone should suit the recipient; For example, avoid technical terms and legalese when writing for a client. 12) Since writing memos is predictive writing, you should try to maintain an objective and unbiased tone while telling the facts. This is not to say that you should leave out the facts that have an emotional impact. On the contrary, the factual portion of a memorandum should not be written in a tone that expresses a preference for a particular theory of the case, implicitly advocates a disputing party, or telegraphs any of the legal conclusions to be drawn in the discussion section. Since you are not defending a page, you should not color or characterize the facts as you would if you were writing a letter. Also, do not comment on the facts in the facts section or discuss how the law applies to them. Writing a legal brief is one of the many necessities for lawyers. This is an important skill to learn if you`re in law school or practicing for the Multistate Performance Test (MPT) or California Performance Test (CA-PT). Including a detailed section on writing the discussion section. Read on to learn how to structure a legal memorandum. Proposals for an internal research memorandum (Note: There is no single “right” style.
Read the instructions for your tasks carefully.) Under these details, you can write “Re:____” (Re in this context is the abbreviation of “Concerning”, which would be the client or organisation involved in the legal case) Visit the library`s Guide to Legal and Legal Topics to access key Australian legal resources and help you with research. 16) If the rule statement serves as a thesis sentence for a longer discussion of a legal rule that has developed over time in a number of cases, the rule proof serves as an explanation and elaboration of that thesis sentence. 24) As a legal drafter, it helps to have a number of qualifiers to recognize how certain or uncertain you are about the actual outcome of the court. Your conclusion may indicate that you are quite confident that the court will decide as you predicted, or that the outcome, given the state of the legal authority, is really a blow and could go one way or the other. Or you can convey any level of trust in between. Keep in mind that the reader will judge your credibility as a legal thinker, among other things, by the consistency of your tone with the available data. In the header, indicate the identity of the author, the recipient of the memorandum, the date, the identity of the client and the subject.
