Legal reasoning and writing skills 2TC

HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW (FOR HLU INTERNAL USE ONLY) HÀ NỘI - 2022 FACULTY OF CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW Program: Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Bussiness law/… Course title: Legal reasoning and writing skills Number of credits: 02 Type of the course: Optional INFORMATION OF LECTURERS - Tơ Văn Hồ (Assoc Prof., PhD.), Tovanhoa@hlu.edu.vn - Hoàng Xuân Châu (PhD.), Hoang.xuan.chau@hlu.edu.vn - Đào Lệ Thu (PhD.), daolethuhlu@gmail.com - Lê Nguyễn Duy Hậu - Nguyễn Thị Kim Chung - Mai Thị Mai - Nguyễn Thu Trang - Đậu Công Hiệp - Phạm Minh Trang Office: Room 501, Building A, Hanoi Law University No 87, Nguyễn Chí Thanh Str., Hanoi Telephone: 04 38352357 Open hours: 8h00 - 16h00 week-days PREREQUISITE COURSES - Constitutional law - Civil law - Criminal law - Administrative law SUMMARY OF THE COURSE “Legal reasoning and legal writing for legal professionals” is a legal methodological training course rather than a substantive law course The course provides the students with knowledge on modern methods of legal reasoning and writing and trains the students to apply those methods in legal practice situations The students will get to work with real cases and in the context which is intimate to lawyers The course is composed of five issues, which focus on three main topics: - Legal argumentation and fallacies; - FIRAC as a modern method of legal reasoning; - CLEO as a method of legal writing CONTENT OF THE COURSE Issue Legal argumentation and fallacies 1.1 Introduction to the legal proffessions 1.2 Legal writing and legal professions 1.3 Structure of legal argumentation 1.4 Common fallacies in marking argument Issue FIRAC as a modern method of legal reasoning 2.1 The fact and the law issue 2.2 Introduction to FIRAC 2.3 The F - Facts 2.4 The I - Issue 2.5 The R – Rules 2.6 The A – Analysys 2.7 The C - Conclusion Issue No FIRAC as a method for briefing of a court’s judgment (case briefing) 3.1 Introduction to case briefing and its usage in legal practice 3.2 The case brief template 3.3 Structure of a court’s judgment (US example) 3.4 Briefing a case Issue No FIRAC as a method for lawyers to resolve cases 4.1 Elements of a factual legal case 4.2 FIRAC and analysys of a case 4.3 Types of facts in a case 4.4 How to identify the legal issue of a case 4.5 Sources of law and finding of the law applicable to a case 4.6 Legal analysys – nature and purpose 4.7 Analysing a case using FIRAC Issue No CLEO as a method of legal writing 5.1 Introducion to CLEO as a legal writing method 5.2 The usage of CLEO in legal practice and in law class 5.3 Example of CLEO application OUTPUT STANDARDS OF THE COURSE AND MEET THE OUTPUT STANDARDS OF THE TRAINING PROGRAM 5.1 The Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) * Knowledges: K1: Eventhough it is not its prime purpose, after this course, the students will be able to gain practical knowledge on a certain issues of substantive law, the legal profession which are touched upon by the cases used during the course * Skills: S2: Be able to analyse a factual legal case using the modern legal reasoning method S3: Be able to identify applicable law to resolve a case S4: Be able to construct persuassive legal argumentation and avoid common fallacies * Self-control ability and self-responsibility: T5: After this course, the student will be more aware of some ethical rules of the legal professions, particularly the rule of loyalty to the client, critical thinking etc 5.2 The matrix demonstrating the compatibility of the CLOs with the TPLOs Learning outc ome s K1 S2 S3 S4 T5 The Knowledge LOs of the training program K1 K K The Skill LOs of the training program The ability LOs of the training program S T S S T T LEARNING OBJECTIVES 6.1 Detailed learning objectives Obj Iss Issue Legal argume ntation and fallacie s Issue FIRAC as a modern method of legal reasoni ng Level Level Level 1A1 Understand the differences between the legal professions 1A2 Understand the role of argumentation in the practice of legal professions 1A3 Understand the structure of a valid legal argumentation 1A4 Know how to avoid fallacies in making legal argumentatiaon 2A1 Understand the definition of legal reasoning 2A2 Understand the role of legal reasoning in making legal argumentation 2A3 Understand the contrast between the fact side and the law side of a legal case 2A4 Understand the composition of FIRAC 2A4 the universal application of legal reasoning method 1B1 Recognize the different components of an argumentation 1B2 Recognize how the different components of legal argumentation work together 1C1 Apply the rule of fallacies in making legal argumentation 2B1 Be able to make critical comments on the unevesiarity of the legal reasoning method 2B2 Recognize how the different elements of FIRAC work together 2B3 Recognize how the elements of FIRAC apply in specific situations 2C1 Be able to identify the fact and law elements in a practical legal case Issue No FIRAC as a method for briefing of a court’s judgme nt (case briefing ) 3A1 Understand the definition of a court’s judgment 3A2 Understand how the court deliver a judgment 3A3 Understand the structure of a modern court’s judgment 3A4 Understand the definition of case briefing in the Comon Law Context 3A5 Understand of the structure of the case briefing template 3A6 Understand the differences between the factual analysis and leal analysis in a court’s judgment Issue 4A1 Understand the No definition of the facts and FIRAC factual context of a legal as a case method 4A2 Understand the for criteria to categorize facts lawyers of a case to 4A3 Understand what resolve the key facts are cases 4A4 Understand what explaining facts are 4A5 Understand what the coincidental facts are 4A6 Understand the process of analysing the 3B1 Relize the differences between different levels of court’s adjudication hiarechy 3B2 Realize the legal argumentation made by the different judges whose judgements are distributed for the students to analyse 3C1 Apply the case briefing template to analyze cases from different countries 3C2 Comments on the differences in the content of different national courts’ judgements after analysing them using the case briefing format 4B1 Recognize the difference between the different types of facts 4B2 Recognize the differences between the sources of law in the common law and civil law systems 4C1 Be able to comment on the role of factual analysys in legal profession 4C2 Be able to analyze the factual elements of an actual legal case 4C3 Be able to categorize the facts of an actual legal case facts of a case 4A7 Understand the definition of a legal aspect of a legal case 4A8 Understand the sources of law in civil law and common law countries 4A9 Understand how to identify the issue of a case 4A10 Understand how to identify applicable law to a case Issue No CLEO as a method of legal writing 5A1 Understand the definition of CLEO 5A2 Understand the role of legal writing in legal profession 5A3 Understand the structure of different 5B1 Recognize the differences between legal reasoning and legal writing 5B2 Recognize the differences 4C4 Be able to identify the nature of the case (the course of action) after analysing the factual context of a case 4C6 Be able to gather reliable facts for an actual legal case 4C7 Be able to identify the issues of actual legal cases 4C8 Be able to identify applicable law on an actual legal case 4C9 Be able to make perssuasive legal analysis in an actual legal case 5C1 Be able to apply CLEO to write a legal memo in an actual legal case component of CLEO method 5A4 Understand what the forms of legal writing are 5A5 Understand the defition of legal memo 5A6 Understand the usage of legal memo in different legal professions between FIRAC and CLEO 5B3 Recognize the interrelation between legal reasoning and legal writing 6.2 Total learning objectives Obj Iss Issue No Issue No Issue No Issue No Issue No Tổng Level Level Level Total 4 10 3 1 11 21 10 30 13 14 57 THE MATRIX DEMONSTRATING THE COMPATIBILITY OF THE DETAILED LEARNING OBJECTIVES WITH CLOs Objective 1A1 1A2 1A3 1A4 1B1 1B2 1C1 Knowledges K1 X X Skills S2 Ability S3 S4 T5 X X X X X X X X X X X X Objective 2A1 2A2 2A3 2A4 2B1 2B2 2B3 2C1 3A1 3A2 3A3 3A4 3A5 3A6 3B1 3B2 3C1 3C2 4A1 4A2 4A3 4A4 4A5 4A6 4A7 4A8 4A9 4A10 4B1 Knowledges K1 X Skills S2 S3 S4 T5 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Ability X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Objective 4B2 4C1 4C2 4C3 4C4 4C5 4C6 4C7 4C8 4C9 5A1 5A2 5A3 5A4 5A5 5A6 5B1 5B2 5B3 5C1 Knowledges Skills Ability K1 S2 S3 S4 T5 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X MATERIALS 8.1 Books William Putman, Legal analysis and writing, 4th edition, Delma Cengage Learning, 2013 Richard Neumann, Kristen Tiscione, Legal reasoning and legal writing, 7th edition, Aspen Coursebook Series, Wolters Kluwer, 2013 Kenneth Vandevelde, Thinking like a lawyer – an introduction to legal reasoning, 2nd edition, Westview Press, 2011 Robin Slocum, Legal resoning, writing, and other lawyering skills, 10 3rd edition, LexisNexis, 2011 Linda Edwards, Legal writing and analysis, 3rd edition, Aspen Coursebook Series, Wolters Kluwer, 2011 Stephen Elias, Legal research – how to find and understand the law, 16th edition, Nolo, 2012 8.2 Cases Motschenbacher, US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, (1974) Gideon v Wainwright, 372 U.S 335, 1963 Betts v Brady, 316 U.S 455, 1942 Loving v Virginia, 388 U.S 1, 1967 Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S 483, 1954 Nix v Hedden, 149 U.S 304, 1893 O’deall v DeJEAN’s Packing Co., Inc., 1978 OK CIV APP 40, 1978 Obergefell et al V Hodges, Director, Ohio Department of Health, et al, U.S 14-556, 2015 Dudgeon v The United Kingdom, ECHR, 7525/76, 1981 10 Hatzimanolis v ANI Corporation Ltd, High Court of Australia, F.C 92/019, 1992 11 Precedent No 02/2016/AL, Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam, 2016 TEACHING – LEARNING FORMS 9.1 General schedule Week Teaching-learning forms Group SelfUnit LectureSeminar Assessment work study 2 3 2 3 Total Participation in seminar Participation in seminar Mid-term exam Participation in seminar 11 Team assignment Participation in seminar Participation in seminar 4 5 Total hours 12 16 10 15 53 Credit hours 12 5 30 9.2 Detailed schedule Week 1: Issue Teaching – Credit Learning hours form Main contents - Introduction to the legal proffessions - Legal writing and legal professions Lecture - Structure of legal argumentation - Common fallacies in marking argument Seminar -Different credi components of legal t argumentation hour - Identifying common s fallacies in legal argumentation Team work - Making simple legal argumentation Self study Tutoring 12 Requirements for students’ preparation - Selected pages from Slocum (2011), Vandevelde (2011), Putman (2013), Neumann (2013) - Video clips: Noll vs Neece case; Meaning of reasoning, legal reasoning skills; types of fallacies - Discussion on the role of lawyers - Identification of fallacies in argumentation - Discussion on the role of lawyers - Identification of fallacies in argumentation - Content: Answering student’s questions off the class, introducing new reference materials etc - Time: 8.30 to 11.00 every Tuesday - Venue: Room 502, A Building or via email Week 2: Issue Teaching – Credit Learning hours form Main contents - The fact and the law issue - Introduction to FIRAC - The F - Facts Lecture - The I - Issue - The R – Rules - The A – Analysys - The C - Conclusion - Working on some cases to identify the Seminar fact and the law texts in those cases Working on some cases to identify the Team work fact and the law texts in those cases Working on some cases to identify the Self study fact and the law texts in those cases - Content: Answering student’s questions introducing new reference materials etc Tutoring - Time: 8.30 to 11.00 every Tuesday - Venue: Room 502, A Building or via email Requirements for students’ preparation Selected pages from Putman (2013) Assigned U.S and Vietnamese cases off the class, Week 3: Issue Teaching – Credit Learning hours form Lecture Seminar Main contents Requirements for students’ preparation - Introduction to case briefing and its usage in legal practice - The case brief template - Structure of a court’s judgment (US example) Briefing cases using the case briefing template - Selected pages from Slocum (2011), Vandevelde (2011), Edwards (2011) - Assigned U.S cases 13 Team work Self study Tutoring Briefing cases using the case briefing template Briefing cases using the case briefing template - Content: Answering student’s questions off the class, introducing new reference materials etc - Time: 8.30 to 11.00 every Tuesday - Venue: Room 502, A Building or via email Week 4: Issue Teaching – Credit Learning hours form Requirements for students’ preparation - Elements of a factual legal case - Slected pages - FIRAC and analysys of a case from Slocum - Types of facts in a case (2011), Stephen How to identify the legal issue Elias (2012), Lecture of a case Vandevelde Sources of law and finding of (2011), Putman the law applicable to a case (2013), Neumann - Legal analysys – nature and (2013) purpose Seminar Analysing actual cases using FIRAC Actual cases Team work Analysing actual cases using FIRAC asigned in the Self study Analysing actual cases using FIRAC class - Content: Answering student’s questions off the class, introducing new reference materials etc Tutoring - Time: 8.30 to 11.00 every Tuesday - Venue: Room 502, A Building or via email Main contents Week 5: Issue Teaching – Credit Requirements for Learning Main contents hours students’ preparation form Lecture - Introducion to CLEO as a legal - Selected pages from writing method Slocum (2011), 14 - The usage of CLEO in legal Putman (2013), practice and in law class Neumann (2013), - Example of CLEO application Edwards (2011) Using CLEO to write legal Actual cases asigned Seminar memo from the analysis of cases in the class handed out in previous classes Using CLEO to write legal Team work memo from the analysis of cases handed out in previous classes Using CLEO to write legal Self study memo from the analysis of cases handed out in previous classes - Content: Answering student’s questions off the class, introducing new reference materials etc Tutoring - Time: 8.30 to 11.00 every Tuesday - Venue: Room 502, A Building or via email 10 POLICIES OF THE COURSE - In accordance with the applicable regulations of the Hanoi Law University 11 ASSESSMENT METHODS 11.1 Frequent assessment - Attendance: Students participate in 75% or more of the prescribed hours for each theory or seminar part - Participation in seminars and team assignment 11.2 Periodical assessment Forms Assessing knowledge and attitudes to participate in seminar Ratio 10% Individual exam/Group project 30% Final exam 60% 11.3 Criteria for assessment 15  Assessing knowledge and attitudes to participate in seminar - Assessing knowledge: Self-study and understand the lesson (1-7 mark) - Attitudes to participate in seminar: Not active / Active positive (1-3 mark) - Total: 10 mark  Individual exam/paper: - The students will be given a real foreign court’s judgment Each of them shall write a sumary of the facts presented in the case The sumary shall not span more than 300 words The time length of the mid-term exam is hour - Criteria to assess the exam/paper: + Identifying the material facts concerning a case; + Clearness in the language used  Final exam - Condition to participate in the final exam: + Students participate in 75% or more of the prescribed hours for each theory or seminar part + Team assignment or individual exam must be greater than - Forms of Final exam: Written exam (120 minutes length) - Content: All issueses given in class and other self-studied issues, including all learning objectives listed in Section of this Outline - Assessment criteria: + Showing good understanding of the knowlege learned during the course; + Understandable argumentation; + Clearness in the language used LEADER OF SUBJECT 16 TABLE OF CONTENTS 10 11 Information of lecturers Prerequisite courses Summary of the course Content of the course Output standards of the course Learning objectives The matrix learning objectives with CLOs Materials Teaching – learning forms Policies of the course Assessment methods Page 2 10 11 15 15 17 ... legal memo 5A6 Understand the usage of legal memo in different legal professions between FIRAC and CLEO 5B3 Recognize the interrelation between legal reasoning and legal writing 6.2 Total learning... to the legal proffessions 1.2 Legal writing and legal professions 1.3 Structure of legal argumentation 1.4 Common fallacies in marking argument Issue FIRAC as a modern method of legal reasoning. .. reasoning 2A2 Understand the role of legal reasoning in making legal argumentation 2A3 Understand the contrast between the fact side and the law side of a legal case 2A4 Understand the composition