Law School

[skylark]

Hmm... are these memoranda or were these writings filed with the court?

If memoranda... this is a bad situation. Sorry. I'd spiff something up for a class, I guess, and hope for the best, maybe?

If these were filed with the court (and hence, public record), I think it is the kind of funny coincidence that I'd point out up front in your writing sample cover sheet that explains the context of the document (I'm assuming students in your area do these cover sheets, although not all students from my school included one). I'd say something like: "While at the time I wrote this I did not contemplate the possibility of using it to seek employment from the opposing side, I think that this is a representative sample of my work and your firm's familiarity with the case's context makes this sample that much more meaningful as an indicator of my abilities."

Good luck to you!

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally Posted by unspokenone25

It's better than having to underline cites. A partner at my firm won't allow associates to use italics in cites...EVER.

Oh, that's bizarre. My boyfriend uses this made up system of citation that I can't believe nobody has called him out for yet. If he is referring to a case, he'll write:

The court held in Roe that abortion should be legal.

but if he's citing to the case, he'll put:

As the Court held, the Constitution has "penumbras, formed by emanations." Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973).

I have no idea where he got this from. I've worked with attorneys from his school and they do it too. I think one of their legal writing professors was high.

Originally Posted by skylark

Hmm... are these memoranda or were these writings filed with the court?

If memoranda... this is a bad situation. Sorry. I'd spiff something up for a class, I guess, and hope for the best, maybe?

If these were filed with the court (and hence, public record), I think it is the kind of funny coincidence that I'd point out up front in your writing sample cover sheet that explains the context of the document (I'm assuming students in your area do these cover sheets, although not all students from my school included one). I'd say something like: "While at the time I wrote this I did not contemplate the possibility of using it to seek employment from the opposing side, I think that this is a representative sample of my work and your firm's familiarity with the case's context makes this sample that much more meaningful as an indicator of my abilities."

Good luck to you!

They were documents filed with the court - it's a defense firm and I worked for the prosecutor this summer. They were filed under my supervising attorney's name, but I wrote them all - there's a few appeals that we won and a bunch of motions that we won. I actually really like the statement you have and think I'll do something like that. I usually do a really short cover sheet that just says "This document was prepared as a response to a motion to suppress evidence in a drunk-driving case" but this seems like a situation where a longer explanation would be good!

Thanks for the advice!