Pro Se-Is It For You?

www.aGameCalledJustice.com- Could be a Valuable Book for your Reference Library
www.napsl.org- National Association of Pro Se Litigants, Inc. (A New Website in the Making, started Dec. 2009)
Pro Se Law Center- A collection of links to court pro se sites and other court-based services for pro se litigants
More Litigants Go To Court Without Lawyers
American P ro Se Society.
or Check the Pro Se News
Websites with sample motions and documents
Legal Acronyms

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Information in these section Organized and Prepared by
Gina
Family Justice Advocate
Parents for Justice and Equality

Websites with sample motions and documents

This website is filled with all kinds of sample motions and other court documents along with valuable links for the pro se determined. Information has been collected from around the United States and parts of it may not apply to each state. Check with state rules when completing paperwork. A must read.

http://www.caught.net/prose/prose.htm also http://www.caught.net/prose/advtt/hborg.htm

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Legal Acronyms

: IRAC IREAC CREAC

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I found something that might help Pro Se people with their paperwork. Some of this may seem like it doesn't apply..... but I figured if we can understand the language, know how to use the language, understand the required format and how to use that format, it will help us all out in the long run.. I guess it will be kind of like a crash course in law, maybe?.

I stumbled across three legal acronyms, IRAC, IREAC, and CREAC. I looked up IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion) and found the following links (some of them have to do with writing essays in law school, but I thought it might show how to lay things out):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Note from web master: all links not nfpcar.org should go to new page or tab)

IRAC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRAC Wikipedia definition of IRAC

http://law.slu.edu/academic_support/irac.html Saint Louis University School of Law "How to IRAC on Examinations" (even though this has to do with examinations you might want to read it. It might help somehow.)

http://www.lawnerds.com/guide/irac.html "learn the secret to legal reasoning" (VERY informational)

http://www.law.msu.edu/rwa/IRAC.pdf THE PARADIGM FOR PREDICTIVE LEGAL WRITING: Using “IRAC”

http://www.law.msu.edu/rwa/IRAC.final.pdf slightly different version of "The Paradigm For Predictive Legal Writing"

www.tsu.edu/msdocs/academics/law/support/IRAC.doc Informational document about IRAC

http://www.lsu.edu/faculty/jpullia/1002iracexample.htm "Example of a Homicide Essay Written in IRAC Format"

http://www.csun.edu/~kkd61657/essay.pdf "How to answer an Exam Essay Question (and “Practice Test” Chapter-End Questions) using the “IRAC” Method"

http://www.llrx.com/node/2106/print The Art of Written Persuasion: From IRAC to FAILSAFE - A Compilation of Legal Problem-Solving Models

"The ‘I’ in ‘IRAC ’, when applied to unfocussed problems, presumes the lawyer knows enough of the law to identify issues. Yet ‘the great secret, kept by all lawyers, is that lawyers don’t know the law … there is too much law for any man to master in his lifetime’.⁴

The ‘R’ in IRAC considers ‘rules’. But ‘rules’ still leave decision-makers with discretion.⁵ Lawyers win most cases on the facts, not rules."

http://www.ggu.edu/school_of_law/bar_exam_services/attachment/Its+all+about+IRAC.pdf How the Skills of IRAC Are Tested on the Bar Exam

http://www.llrx.com/node/2070/print The Art of Written Persuasion: The Rise of Written Persuasion

"Written persuasion now provides an essential opportunity for lawyers to persuade judges. Yet, even in America, where lawyers have used written persuasion for a century or more, lawyers' written advocacy skills remain under-developed. In this column, I will suggest some causes of the problem and some possible solutions."

http://www.llrx.com/node/2096/print The Art of Written Persuasion: The Problem with the Case Method and the Case for the Problem Method

"In this second article, I explore why lawyers write badly. I suggest the problem (and the solution) may relate to the way law schools and postgraduate courses teach legal method rather than the way law schools and postgraduate courses teach legal writing.

Commentators have suggested several reasons why lawyers write badly.²

Those reasons include bad habits, historical causes, time and resource pressures, and the way lawyers view themselves. To correct the problem, books and courses on legal writing provide advice on using plain language, forming sentences, linking paragraphs, and so on. These books and courses provide wise advice, yet lawyers still argue cases badly in writing.

So I want to suggest a more basic reason lawyers write badly. Lawyers write badly because law schools and postgraduate courses teach the wrong legal method. How can you write a persuasive solution to a legal problem if you do not have a proper method for solving the legal problem in the first place?^3"

This email is getting kind of long, so I will cover IREAC (Issue, Rules, Explanation, Application, Conclusion) and CREAC (Conclusion, Rule, Explanation, Application, & Conclusion) in another email. I'm also going to stop listing links for IRAC, but I'm including the search link in case you want to explore IRAC further.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=IRAC&ei=utf-8&fr=b2ie7&xargs=0&pstart=1&b=91&xa=AXpHTxu7Diwzm7fqBxxHaA--,1240325823

CREAC

May you find strength in your Higher Power, GranPa Chuck
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