Legal Writing and Oral Advocacy: Structure a Judge Can Adopt
Legal writing and oral advocacy tests whether you can structure an argument a judge can adopt: clear facts, identified issues, applicable rules, application and a precise request. The same discipline governs pleadings, memoranda and oral submissions.
Written work
- Pleadings follow a fixed architecture: identification of parties and case, chronological facts with exhibit references, legal discussion (statute first, then cassation rulings), and a prayer for relief listing each head of claim.
- Short paragraphs, one idea each; every request must name its legal basis; attach an exhibit schedule.
- A memorandum or opinion uses IRAC - issue, rule, application, conclusion - with the conclusion stated first in an opening paragraph.
Oral advocacy
- Open with the dispositive point in one sentence; deal with admissibility and jurisdiction before the merits.
- Answer the bench directly, concede what is untenable, and explain why the remainder survives.
- On cassation, argue only law and anchor each ground in a specific provision; factual re-argument fails.
Worked example
On appeal against a judgment ordering payment of a contract debt, the opening is: the appeal turns on one point - the original obligation was extinguished by novation, so the claim cannot stand. Two minutes of facts, the rule, its application, then the relief: reversal of the judgment in whole.
Traps
Burying the request under narrative; citing a decision without a pinpoint; omitting the prayer for relief so the court cannot grant it; re-arguing facts at cassation; using the allotted time on background instead of the dispositive issue.