If the 30-days is not relevant, either leave out the detail or be more generic: 'Bradley wants to quit with the minimum allowable notice'Įvery detail should have a purpose.

The lawyer will mentally look for how the 30-day notice time period affects the client's legal rights. If your memo says: 'Bradley wants to quit on 30-days notice' Unnecessary details in your fact statement draw lawyers down the wrong path and distract them from what is actually important. As they read, lawyers search for the potential meaning in the details you provide them. Lawyers are alert and purposeful readers. Be Purposeful and Complete: Legally Relevant, Background, and Emotional Facts Your browser does not support the audio element.ī. Hear Ben and Anna (icon) describe what information came in and out as they wrote and rewrote their fact statements. You evaluate how information affects the case's strengths and weaknesses.įinally, you rewrite your memo's fact statement, checking that the final version includes everything you used in your discussion and enough background information so anyone reading the memo understands the context. In the memo's discussion section, you again sift through the client's account and documents to place them into your research framework. So you will often call the client back to check facts and ask more questions. If possible, you want to avoid having to make assumptions in a memo. You won't know what facts are relevant to your analysis until you finish your research.Īnd your research often leads you to new areas. You start with the fullest version of the facts possible so that you don't overlook any legal issue that might affect your advice. You sift through the client's account of events, relationships, complaints, injuries, and future plans and goals, and review all the client's documents to decide what legal issues to research. Writing the fact section forces you to look closely at each fact, place it into an organized context, and rethink its meaning, importance, and relevance to the legal issue, and the client's desired outcome. You include enough background facts to present the client's story coherently. You write the fact section so that someone unfamiliar with the matter will get a concise and complete picture of the facts used in your legal analysis and conclusion. The facts are the starting point for your research, the core of your legal prediction, and ultimately the turning point of every court decision. The Circle of Facts: Write and Rewrite, and Rewrite Againįacts drive every legal matter. You may state the question in the 'whether' form or an 'under-does-when' form.Facts a. Each legal issue that the internal legal memo will discuss is a separate question.

State the question, or questions, that the internal legal memo will address in the 'Questions Presented' section.

The four lines of the header are 'To:', 'From:', 'Date:' and 'Re:'. The header is comprised of four lines indicating the purpose of the memo, the parties to the memo and the date.

A legal memo updates her on the status of the law, and may offer a prediction as to how the court will decide the issue.

Laws change frequently in the UK due to the use of prior case law as precedent, as well as new laws and codes that are enacted.

Example of legal memo