Curriculum
Empowered legal writing
Professor Doron Samuel-Siegel, L’01, is reimagining the process of legal writing. In her new book, Fundamentals & Decision Points: An Empowered Approach to Legal Writing, Samuel-Siegel shares an eight-step process that she believes is applicable to all writing projects attorneys are likely to face throughout their careers.
“I wanted students to have a book that would help them feel empowered as decision-makers in their writing,” said Samuel-Siegel. “In order to feel empowered, I think students need to learn a set of fundamental principles, strategies, and conventions, as well as cultural competence. Then, by applying those fundamentals through an organized, repetitious process, students can develop that sense of empowerment.
Convention can be an impediment to progress and to the widening path of justice and equality in the U.S. legal system.
“Rather than [merely memorizing] how to write a legal memo or a letter to a client, I wanted students to emerge from their first year knowing that they themselves have everything they need to be successful as legal writers.”
Samuel-Siegel teaches students to apply her multi-step process. “Through that practice and their reliance on the fundamentals, students can emerge knowing that whatever the next legal writing project demands of them, they’ll be equipped to provide.”
Samuel-Siegel’s book also encourages students to think critically about convention. “Our profession is really driven by convention, and often our clients’ interests require that we, as lawyers, adhere to it,” she said. “But we also know that convention can be an impediment to progress and to the widening path of justice and equality in the U.S. legal system. I want students to think critically about when convention will serve their clients’ needs and when, on the other hand, it might actually inhibit those needs or interests.”
After nearly a decade of writing and refining the book through feedback from and collaboration with her students, Samuel-Siegel’s book was published by West Academic earlier this year.
“I hope [students] will use these tools and really consider how, through their writing, they might be able to contribute to a more equitable and just world.”