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Journal article
A Method for Writing Factual Complaints
Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University Law Review, v 1998, pp 109-174
01 Apr 1998
Abstract
Introduction: Pleading is rarely taught in law school. Most of you learned to draft complaints on the job. In consequence, complaints heavily mimic those found in office files, which themselves were paraphrased from complaints in other files and from form books. The result is a progression of mediocrity, spiritually akin to succeeding generations of pale grey photocopies. Instead, write a complaint that you yourself would want to read. Let the complaint be a product of your professional judgment. That judgment begins with research. By researching during the drafting of a complaint, you can reinvent the cause of action, shore up the complaint against a demurrer, and avoid scrambling to learn the elements after you have been served with a motion for summary judgment. As my academic readers know, a lawyer should set up his or her authority over the law at the inception of a case. Law students need to be taught ways that law is made not by judges but by the practice of it. This manual is written to suggest such a pedagogy. Drafting a factual complaint entails analysis so fundamental to legal reasoning that it should be taught during the first year. 1 Complaints map the way that lawyers think. Lawyers think in allegations, with the steps in reasoning left implicit. Lawyers list. Lawyers tell the client's story in skeletal form: Here are the basic facts of my client's claim or defense. Yet pleading does not receive the introduction that Legal Writing and Research provides for ...
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Details
- Title
- A Method for Writing Factual Complaints
- Creators
- Jan Armon - Drexel University, English and Philosophy
- Publication Details
- Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University Law Review, v 1998, pp 109-174
- Publisher
- Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University Law Review
- Number of pages
- 66
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- English and Philosophy
- Other Identifier
- 991021890213604721