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Breaking Bad Briefs, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

This article focuses on the practical effects of bad briefing on our legal process and suggests a holistic remedy: a system-wide commitment to striving to instill in law students and lawyers a respect for legal writing as, not only a fundamental competency of our chosen profession, but a talent that requires initial training, focused study, repeated practice, and conscious evolution throughout the arc of one’s legal education and career. Effective brief-writing is not as simple as a quick cut-and-paste job, a template download, or a stream-of-consciousness exercise, even for lawyers who repeatedly practice one type of case. Part I of …