Course Description - Law 17 _ Legal Writing

Welcome to the Law 17- Legal Writing. This course consists of advanced legal drafting and writing, incuding research, and special projects.

The student will learn how to read and post their legal analysis to legal hypotheticals (these come directly from the West Business Law textbook used by our Paralegal Program for Law 10 (Intro to Law), Law 19 (Property & Creditor Rights), Business Law 1 (Contracts), and Business Law 2 (Partnerships and Corporations). see textbooks. The student will also learn how to prepare a standard "business letter", a demand letter which requires legal research of case and code law, a Mandatory Settlement Conference Brief ("MSC Brief") in a complex Wrongful Death Personal Injury case, a Motion for Summary Judgment, and an Appellate Brief. see assignments.

Students will learn how to use the internet to do legal research, how to locate and use law on the internet, how to use search engines, and the student will learn how to use the paralegal webpage to locate other areas of the law.

Students should be familiary with an overview of law and the legal system, , including the courts, the court system, how to read, understand and brief court cases, how to read, and understand California and Federal Codes, and a general overview of substantive laws which a paralegal must be familiar with to do their job properly.

The student will learn to "think critically" in law, This will be accomplished through the use of the posted discussions and the written documents. All documents may be posted to the specific posting forums under each written project. (students who do not want to post, or do not have a computer may, of course, submit their written exercises, and all posting discussions in handwritten form or in typewritten form, or by email, whichever is more convenient for the student.

The student will learn how to do legal research in general, how to phrase a legal question or issue, and how to search for the correct "legal" answer. The student will improve their writing skills and learn basic skills in legal drafting and writing.  Finally, he student will improve their study skills and will improve how they study law.

This course is offered through the internet to meet the student's needs for flexibility in time and space. Many college students are working full-time or have transportation limitations due to financial reasons.The course is transferrable to CSU. You should consult with our Counseling Department to determine the exact trasnferability of this class. You may also wish to email a counselor at our college.

Types of activities:

Lectures - there will be no formal, or informal instructions. However, instructions will be provided under "Instructions", along with updates, or under the calendar for this class.

Reading Assignments are limited to reading the parts of West's Business Law which relate to the Discussions and the PPR's (more on this later). listed under "assignments", and will be given from Textbook :Textbook: Our textbook for this class is WEST'S BUSINESS LAW by Clarkson, Miller, Jentz, and Cross (Seventh Edition-Dark Blue, you may use the Sixth Edition-Burgundy Red, however class room discussions will refer to the Seventh Edition - there are slight differences, however, a student can easily use the Sixth Edition for this class), ISBN 0-538-879-3 (hard). You may order the textbook through ecampus.com for $71.86 (as of 3/22/00)at the following location (West Business Law - 7th Edition). The textbook is also available at the Campus Bookstore or directly from West Publishing 1-800-328-4880, or you may order it directly from ITP at email:findit@kiosk.thomson.com.

Threaded discussions (on Bulletin Board): student participation in asynchronous
online discussions will form a significant part of the grade (see grading below). Discussion
questions based on text and Website readings will be posted weekly in the Bulletin Board
page. Discussions will take place using the Bulletin Board.

Legal Briefs: These will consist of writing legal briefs or short legal memoranda.

Course Evaluation:

The final grade will be determined by:

Postings: 100 points each

PPRs: 100 points each

Written Assignments: 250 points or more

Required Resources:

System requirements: IBM or compatible (486/33 CPU minimum) with Windows
or Mac or compatible with 6.05 operating system or higher, 8 megs of RAM, 20
megs free hard disc space, modem with a 9600 baud rate minimum.