Post #7

I'm working on the motion for downward departure. I draft the remainder of the article by referring to an old one that my supervisor has done, and then I'll send a first completed draft to her for revision. She may or may not send it back to me to fix, depending on how close my writing is to what she wants. The back and forth is much like the editing process, and to to good degree, it is. I am always relieved that my supervisor reviews my drafts directly, it is such a relief to know that my attempts at legal documents won't ever make it out of the office without her approval, and when I get the document I can see what was needed and why, and also what statutes were relevant in the cases.

This document alone will probably get close to the twenty page requirement for this internship, and will demonstrate my evolving knowledge of professional, legal writing. The biggest thing I am learning in the process of writing a motion for downward departure is the purpose of the document. I had never written a motion for downward departure before, but most legal documents resemble each other in that they use the same template--you just tailor the content to fit each unique case.
In this situation however my supervisor has given me a previous motion for downward departure for a criminal case that I can model this document off of, so I know the sections, the whats and whys, and all that is left is to figure out how. The facts are different, and in the Statement of Facts I didn't have to use any specialized legal knowledge until the end of that section and the sections beyond, so I could write the way I would write a persuasive essay about literature, which was a nice break from figuring out how to compose something in a legal work.

In addition to this motion for downward departure, I am drafting a collection letter to be submitted in Small Claims Court. This is much harder because I haven't found a template for this so I'm unsure of the format. Letters in law are easier--the goal of this type of document, and really with any type of legal writing, but especially this one, is to cover your butt. Correspondence letters are proof that you have done something on behalf of your client: it details what you have done, what you may be doing in the future, your client's acknowledgment of your actions and correspondence, and what is to be expected as a result. For this client, a business, customers owe money for services and have not paid. The company hired us to write collection letters stating that we will take legal action if the customers fail to pay. That was in July, and most of the customers have since paid. Our client intends to pursue the customers who haven't paid in Small claims Court, using this office as representation. So we will file that complaint to get the ball rolling. This seems to be a more typical task for an attorney, so I like this assignment as much as the other, more unusual cases too.

Maybe this somewhat explains why my supervisor called this job a "first year legal education."