The five professors who teach Legal Drafting at the University Of Florida Levin College Of Law meet weekly to collaborate with each other.  We also set aside two or three class sessions every semester to experiment with new and innovative teaching ideas.  This semester I used that time to introduce additional collaboration into the class.  I collaborated with another professor who teaches negotiation skills, and had the students work in pairs to negotiate the terms of the agreement before they drafted it. Collaboration among professors benefits professors by exposing them to “ne ..read more

IRAC is an acronym for Issue, Rule, Application and Conclusion.  I imagine every law school in America teaches its students to use some variation of IRAC as the structure for analyzing a legal issue.  And IRAC works fine if the analysis is simple, like this: Issue The issue in this case is whether Supermarket Corp. was responsible for maintaining the premises in reasonably safe condition. Rule A basic tenet of premises liability in tort law is those who own or control property have a duty to maintain it in safe condition.  Oliveri v. Massachusetts Bay Transp. Authority, 363 Mass ..read more

When I first started teaching legal research I divided the topic into “paper research” and “computer research.” I covered the digest, the court reporters, statutes and regulations, all in paper form at the library. Then I went on line and showed the students how to use Westlaw and Lexis. A year later, I would see the students in the library and they would all be on their laptops, taking advantage of the free access they had to Westlaw and Lexis. Meanwhile, the books sat on the shelves, untouched. And some of the students I asked still didn’t known what a digest was. Either they forgot or they ..read more

  Every first year law student is taught citations, most using the infamous 565 page “Blue Book.”  I doubt anyone covers the whole book.  Still, my impression is that most professors, including me, teach far more than most students will ever use.  And there are times when I think that strategy is embarrassingly ineffective.  Students end up not seeing the forest through the trees. They graduate the first year of law school, and they still make obvious mistakes doing even the simplest of citations.  For that reason, I’ve given second year students a very short outl ..read more

A lawyer’s writing skills (or lack thereof) can have a direct—even severe—impact on clients’ interests. Did an employer owe a former employee a $7.5 million commission? The court’s answer hinged on imprecise word usage in an employment contract. (Langford v. Paravant, 912 So.2d 359, (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. (2005)) Did an insurance policy cover a child’s injuries that occurred at a parent’s workplace? The court’s answer involved analysis of the careless placement of commas and a restrictive modifier in the policy. (N. Pointe Cas. Ins. Co. v. M & S Tractor Servs., Inc., 62 So. 3d 1281 (Fla. Dis ..read more

“Lying within the lake” is a simple phrase, and we know what it means. Yet it was central to a contract dispute involving $20 million. The case addressed the rights of a rock-quarry company’s owner (Mr. Elmore) to excavate material from a human-made lake on land that Mr. Elmore had owned but sold to a utility company (FP&L).  Florida Power & Light Co. v. Hayes, 122 So. 3d 408, 409-11 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2013).  The case involved contracts from 1955, 1958, and 1984. The alleged breach occurred in 2004. Two lakes were created pursuant to the 1955 contract. Six, 50-foot strips ..read more

A recent Illinois Supreme Court opinion added fuel to the long debate over “shall,” a word historically used to convey a mandatory or prohibited action in contracts and legislation. (Thanks to Legal Writing Prof for posting about it.) In People v. Geiler, the defendant argued that a traffic citation should be dismissed because the police failed to transmit it to the court within 48 hours, as required by Illinois Supreme Court Rule 552: “The arresting officer shall complete the form or ticket and, within 48 hours after the arrest, shall transmit the portions entitled ‘Complaint’ and ‘Dispositio ..read more

At a cocktail party, verb tense errors may or may not matter. Fellow guests probably won’t remember how you spoke anyway. When construing statutes and other binding documents, courts have cared about verb tense. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court said, “Congress’ use of a verb tense is significant in construing statutes.”  United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 329, 333, (1992).  That makes sense because verb tense indicates timing, which certainly can affect cases involving a condition that triggers a right or duty. Obviously, lawyers who draft binding documents need to understand verb ..read more

During my introduction to contract drafting last week, I reviewed with my students a contracts case that hinged on the meaning of a common, four-letter word: “sale.” Many lawyers wouldn’t think to look up “sale” in a dictionary because everyone “knows” what it means. That seemingly clear word caused a $7.5 million employment-contract dispute that ended up in a Florida appellate court.  Yes, word choice can really matter. In Langford v. Paravant, a retired military officer took a job with Paravant, a company pursuing a $300 million contract with TRW (a large government contractor). Mr, Lan ..read more