Legal Research and Memorandums of Law

• Author: Tina Kamakaris/Jane Kamakaris/Louis Kamakaris
• Pages: 65-78

65

Chapter 6 Legal Research and Memorandums of Law

CHAPTER 6

e legal research discussion in this chapter includes a detailed breakdown of how to construct

legal citations that provide a cross-Canada, and beyond, road map that directs the reader to where

to locate the law.

INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUMS

Interoce memorandums, or “memos,” are standard in all businesses, including the business of law.

ey are written messages between people within the oce; hence, interoce. For that reason,

memos are not usually mailed out and do not require mailing envelopes. Memos are usually written

on 8 ½ x 11” memo letterhead. e discussion in Chapter 5 about reference initials, enclosures,

copy (c:), and blind copy (bc:) notations applies equally to memos. Writers may sign their memos

either above the reference initials (yi = your initials) or initial their memos right beside their keyed

name in the From line; see Precedent 6.2. In the law oce, memos have two purposes:

1. To conduct day-to-day interoce communication among law oce sta; Precedent 6.2.

2. To report legal research, Precedent 6.3.

LEGAL MEMORANDUMS

Remember your high school research essay on tadpoles? Legal memorandums are research “essays”

on law. Frequently, a senior lawyer writes a regular interoce memo, Precedent 6.2, asking a junior

lawyer or a law clerk to research the written law and the case law (court decisions) that would

support and help prove a case at hand. e junior lawyer or law clerk then reports the ndings

back to the senior lawyer in a legal memorandum, or memo of law, Precedent 6.3. ere is no

prescribed format for memos of law. e format may include the facts, issue, short conclusion,

discussion, summary, and recommendation. e rst part of a legal memorandum usually contains

statute research, and the second part usually contains case law research. If judges have in the past

ruled in favour of people in the same situation as that of the client, the lawyer may use the ndings

to support his or her arguments in court. For real-life examples of court rulings, follow the gavel

throughout this manual.

QUOTATIONS

A quotation is text copied word for word from other sources. It is called a quotation because it

is usually identied by opening and closing quotation marks (“ ”). Quoted matter is the most

important feature in legal research, but knowing how to present it in a legal memorandum can

LEGAL RESEARCH

AND MEMORANDUMS

OF LAW

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