Abstract

Training in legal writing is a vital part of a lawyer's education both because it is a skill required by the successful practitioner and because learning to write as a lawyer is an integral part of the process that turns laypersons into lawyers. As writing teachers we find that paying attention only to process obscures an important lesson: No rhetoric is effective except to the extent that it is devised for a particular audience and occasion. The author discusses James Kinneavy's suggestion that we offer students the broader version of process implied in Heidegger's concept of “forestructure” and suggests that students be given a context in which to write, a context that contains strong clues as to audience and purpose.