This is the second in a series of four Jagged Rocks of Wisdom guidebooks for new attorneys. The first book, Jagged Rocks of Wisdom: Professional Advice for the New Attorney, focused on issues of professional deportment and training.
This book focuses on one of the most complex aspects of professional work for a new attorney: researching, drafting, and refining the crucially important legal memorandum. It is difficult to convey to a non-lawyer just how stressful the world of the new law associate is—the nearest comparison is to that of the medical resident—and much of the reason for that stress is the legal memorandum, upon which a client’s fate can rest (along with the associate’s).
This book breaks the process of the legal memorandum into “21 Rules.” By design these rules are conflicting and even internally inconsistent—just as with the practice of law itself ( . . . and one of Lund’s first points about legal memoranda). In this, the only book available to the new attorney on the proper approach to legal memoranda, the mysteries are revealed. The process and survival will be no less arduous, but with this book the journey will not be nearly as treacherous.
Jagged Rocks of Wisdom--The Memo is written by a current law partner, in a style that is direct and informative. While many guidebooks are filled with platitudes and generalities, there is a serious need for genuine professional guidance. That’s where these focused guides step in.
With more than a decade of experience in law practice at a national law firm, as well as many years coaching new attorneys, the advice on drafting the legal memorandum perfectly complements the advice in the first Jagged Rocks of Wisdom book. A no-nonsense approach is absorbed eagerly by summer and junior law associates desperate for an insider’s look at the scary new world they enter.
