Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students [Connected eBook]

by Nedzel, Nadia E.

• ISBN13: 9798892074667
• ISBN10: 8892074660
• eBook ISBN(s): 9798892074674
• Edition: 6th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-09-15
• Publisher: Aspen Publishing
• More Book Details

Summary

Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook on Casebook Connect, including academic lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities. Access also includes an outline tool and other helpful resources. Connected eBooks provide what you need most to be successful in your law school classes.

Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students, Sixth Edition, helps international students understand and approach legal research and writing assignments the way law students and attorneys do in the United States. With a comparative perspective enhanced by her training in a bi-jural legal system and experience teaching students from all over the world, Professor Nedzel introduces the unique and important features of the American legal system and American law schools. 

Using clear instruction, examples, visual aids, and practice exercises, she teaches practical lawyering skills with sensitivity to the challenges of ESL students. The book begins with the immediate survival skills that students need to be successful, such as case briefing, creating a course outline, reading citations, and writing answers to hypothetical exam questions. The following chapters cover all the key skills, with 6 chapters on reasoning and writing and 5 on research. Citation format information is integrated into the text, allowing instructors to discuss requirements in context.

New to the Sixth Edition:

• New Chapter 12 on using generative AI in legal research and writing, discussing how AI is changing the study and practice of law.
• Updated examples and exercises throughout the text.

Professors and students will benefit from:

• Streamlined presentation that makes the material easily accessible.
• Helpful examples and exercises throughout the book that help students learn to apply skills.
• Exercises in each chapter that can be done online as well as in the law library, with either commercial or non-commercial websites.
• Well-designed examples for international students that are limited to very simple concepts in criminal law, tort, and contracts until the later chapters when subjects more of interest to LL.M. candidates are used, such as trademark and international business transactions.
• Flowcharts and checklists for visual learners.
• Three chapters on objective legal writing, including exam writing and office memo, rewriting, and scholarly articles.
• Chapter on contract drafting, oriented towards international business transactions.

Table of Contents

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Contents 
Preface for the Sixth Edition 
Acknowledgments 

Introduction and Survival Skills (Case Briefing and Outlining)
Chapter 1 United States Common Law
Chapter 2 Introduction to American Legal Research and the Federal System
Chapter 3 Legal Reasoning and Objective Legal Writing: IRAC,
the Hypothetical Exam, and the Interoffice Memo
Chapter 4 The Legal Process 
Chapter 5 The Research Process
Chapter 6 Researching and Updating Case Law 
Chapter 7 Researching and Interpreting Constitutions, Statutes,
Regulations, and International Law 
Chapter 8 Rewriting and Style 
Chapter 9 Technology in U.S. Law and Non-Fee CALR 
Chapter 10 Advanced Objective Writing 
Chapter 11 Preventive Writing: Drafting Contracts 
Chapter 12 Using Generative AI in Legal Research and Writing 

Index