Legal Writing Sem for IIP LLM LAW 681

Description

This is a year-long course designed to teach students in the International Intellectual Property LLM program how to research and write a scholarly academic paper of approximately 25 to 30 pages on an intellectual property topic of their choosing. The goal is to teach the students the principles of academic writing of a caliber suitable for publication in a law journal. In the first semester, the course teaches students how to conduct legal research, both in print materials and through computer research. The class also teaches students the academic standards of proper attribution, quotation, and plagiarism, including some training in how to put citations in proper BlueBook format. In addition, students are instructed and tutored on writing and legal writing fundamentals such as proper sentence construction, precision and clarity, proper word choices, organization, and use of thesis and topic sentences. Further, over the course of the semester, students learn how to select a suitable topic, conduct a preemption search of the topic, outline the paper, and write a title, introduction, and Part I of the paper (descriptive section of the problem analyzed in the paper). Each student receives extensive written feedback on her draft from the professors, after which a conference is held with the student to provide oral feedback and reply to questions from the student. By the end of the first semester, students have written the title, introduction, and Part I of their papers. In the second semester, the class teaches students how to write Part II (normative section offering a solution to the problem), Part III (section responding to criticisms of the proposal), and the Conclusion of the paper. Students learn how to revise their papers and "self-grade" their papers to ensure they satisfy all of the formatting and writing requirements taught in class. Each student also presents her paper to the entire class in approximately 20 minutes and responds to questions from the class for approximately 30 minutes. The class provides written feedback to each presenter, in order to help the presenter improve the paper. During the semester, students turn in several drafts of their papers and receive both written and oral feedback for each part, with in-person conferences with the professors after each draft. By the end of the second semester, students turn in the final completed paper and receive a letter grade for their work in the course. Some students may seek publication of their papers in law reviews.

Schedule