Legal Research and Writing

Graduate with writing skills the law demands

At Gonzaga University School of Law you can expect more from our legal skills program. The difference starts with legal research and writing.

Most law schools require only one year of writing classes. At Gonzaga University School of Law, we believe extensive training in legal research and writing is the cornerstone of a successful legal career.

That's why Gonzaga requires two years of legal research and writing, to provide an exceptional grounding in the practical and essential skills the law demands.

• The required two-year writing curriculum is the one aspect that makes Gonzaga unique among law schools.
• Students are required to complete the program in four sequential semesters.
• The first year is about fundamentals.
• Students write to provide information — what the law is, how the law relates to a factual situation.
• It's also a skill-building process that not only improves writing, but  research skills as well.
• The second year builds on the first, adding transactional drafting and persuasive writing to the trial and appellate courts.
• Because of the small class sizes, the program also offers a great deal of opportunity for individual attention.

What to expect

Gonzaga has a required four-semester Legal Research and Writing (LR&W) Program taught by seven experienced LR&W professors.

Year One:

• The first-year course, LR&W I & II, is a year-long, four-credit class.
• It focuses on developing and refining the following skills:  legal analysis; legal research, both in print sources and on-line; and objective, predictive legal writing.
• Students work on a series of increasingly complex research and writing projects, i.e., legal memoranda and opinion letters.  In the first semester, the first two projects are closed universe.
• The teachers fully critique these projects but do not assign a grade. Both projects emphasize legal analysis.
• Students then write at least one open research memo that is fully critiqued, but not graded in that semester.
• The final open research memo is fully graded.
• In the second semester, students focus on more complex resources such as constitutional provisions, statutes, legislative history, and administrative regulations.
• They write two open memos on complex issues and an opinion letter from one of their memos. Their final memo is graded.
• Students also take a graded research test at the end of each semester.
• In addition, throughout each semester, students are also writing shorter pieces and keeping research journals that are critiqued by the teachers.
• The goal is to teach the skill, critique the skill, and then grade the skill each semester. Individual conferences and rewrites are hallmarks of the first-year writing program.

Year Two:

• The second-year classes (two credits) focus on transactional drafting and persuasive writing.
• The first-semester class, LR&W III, focuses on introducing students to transactional drafting with an ungraded drafting exercise.  The project may be a contract, a will, or some conveyance instrument.
• Students then move on to persuasive writing through a series of litigation documents.
• They start with a demand letter and then move on to a draft and a rewrite of a procedural motion.  Finally, they draft a motion for summary judgment with supporting memorandum, exhibits, and affidavits.
• For the final semester, in LR&W IV, students work in pairs on an appellate brief.
• They then argue that brief either in a classroom setting or through our intra-school moot court competition that culminates in oral argument before members of the Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska Supreme Courts.

Legal Research and Writing faculty

• The LR&W Program encourages academic freedom. 
• Although the LR&W teachers coordinate the number and types of formal assignments, each teacher is free to develop syllabi and select textbooks.
• The LR&W faculty are ranked professors and have the opportunity to apply for five-year, presumptively renewable contracts in their fourth year of teaching LR&W. 
• LR&W faculty have full voting rights and representation on all faculty committees. LR&W teachers often chair faculty committees.
• Teaching load varies depending on enrollment. LR&W teachers may teach outside the LR&W curriculum and are eligible for sabbaticals and full research stipends.

Top of Page