LEGAL

WRITING AS A TOOL FOR STUDYING

Copyright 2020 Roberto A. Abad & Blessilda B Abad-Gamo. All Rights Reserved. For Use in Ateneo de Manila University - School of Law's Introduction to Law. (20 July 2020)

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THE LEGAL DISPUTE OR LEGAL ISSUE IS YOUR COMPASS1

If you know your legal dispute or, for purposes of studying for your law
class, your topic for the day, you will be able to study cases in the
original efficiently and with purpose.

A legal dispute lies at the heart of every case. In fact, most of your writing
assignments as a lawyer would probably be devoted to arguing and resolving such a

Copyright 2020 Roberto A. Abad & Blessilda B Abad-Gamo. All Rights Reserved. For Use in Ateneo de Manila University - School of Law's Introduction to Law. (20 July 2020)
dispute. There is a legal dispute when one party complains of a violation of his right
by another who, on the other hand, denies such a violation. A legal dispute in this
sense is akin to a cause of action in a civil suit in which the defendant denies the claim
against him. It is this denial that tenders a legal dispute.

When a person renting an apartment allegedly could not pay the agreed monthly
rents yet refuses to leave his unit, a legal dispute arises. This consists of (a) the
apartment owner’s claim that the tenant fails to pay the agreed monthly rents and
must leave his unit and (b) the tenant’s denial of the claim and insistence to retain
the unit. You have in this case a right protected by law, an alleged violation of such
right, and a denial of the allegation—a legal dispute.

In a criminal case, the legal dispute consists in the State’s claim that the accused
has violated its right to compel obedience to its laws and in the latter’s denial of the claim
during his arraignment. So what does the legal dispute consists of when a person
defrauds another by selling a fake Rolex watch to him for the price of a genuine one?
This consists of (a) the State’s charge that the accused defrauded the complainant by
selling a fake Rolex watch to him for the price of a genuine one; and (b) the
accused’s denial of the charge.

Why is it important to know and identify the legal dispute involved in a case?
Since a legal dispute involves a violation of a right protected by law or which violation
the law punishes, nothing less than the resolution of such dispute could properly end it.
Precisely, we say that a legal dispute is at the heart of every case subject of legal writing
because it is like a tumor that would not go away until it is excised. Consequently, if you
fail to correctly identify the legal dispute and address it, you would just be running
around in circles, contributing nothing to its final termination. That is how important it
is!

As a rule, the legal dispute, recast in the format of an issue, provides the
principal issue in every case. Take the earlier case of the tenant who could not pay the
agreed monthly rents yet refuses to leave his apartment unit. We said that the legal

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Chapter 2: The Legal Dispute, Fundamentals of Legal Writing.

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dispute consists in (a) the apartment owner’s claim that the tenant fails to pay the agreed
monthly rents and must leave his unit and (b) the tenant’s denial of the claim and
insistence to retain the unit. Put in the format of an issue, the principal issue is
“whether or not the tenant who fails to pay the monthly rents must leave the
apartment unit.”

In the criminal case discussed above, we said that the legal dispute consists in (a)
the State’s charge that the accused defrauded the complainant by selling a fake Rolex
watch to him for the price of a genuine one; and (b) the accused’s denial of the charge.

Copyright 2020 Roberto A. Abad & Blessilda B Abad-Gamo. All Rights Reserved. For Use in Ateneo de Manila University - School of Law's Introduction to Law. (20 July 2020)
Recast as an issue, the principal issue is “whether or not the accused defrauded the
complainant by selling a fake Rolex watch to him for the price of genuine one.”

Why is knowledge of the principal issue important to you in studying your cases?
Knowing your legal issue, legal dispute, principal issue will help you filter the
information in a case. In studying cases you must have in mind what subject you are
studying for, what topic you are taking up in class and what doctrine the particular case is
assigned for. With this in mind you can focus on only what is relevant and discard what
is not.

DIGESTING THE FACTS2

One way to study case materials is to make short random notes of the facts of the
case that you consider important as you go over them. This is a good practice. But
purely random notes do not give you the complete picture. Because they are random,
they are often uncorrelated. What you need is systematically prepared notes that
adequately capture the entire factual terrain of the case, with the important points
properly marked out. You need to summarize or digest. You can best understand and
absorb written materials when you summarize their contents. Your summary serves as a
detailed map in your hand, able to guide you in negotiating your way through the dispute
involved.

Summarizing to compress the information you need, forces you to search your
materials for what is important. It compels you to toss an item of fact over in your mind,
assess its importance and relevance to the issues in the case, and decide whether to keep
it in or throw it out of your summary. When you come to an item of fact and ask
yourself, “What is the significance of this fact to this case?,” you begin to wonder. Then,
all your accumulated knowledge and experience bear on that item of fact and, usually,
your mind produces the right answer.

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Chapter 4: Getting at the Facts of the Case, Fundamentals of Legal Writing.

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 The challenge is to make a short summary of the above by crossing out the non-
essential facts. Surely, you would be quite reckless if you just wield a pen and cross out
every word from the text that you fancy as having of no use to you. What you need is a
more precise pruning knife. As already stated, that pruning knife is nothing else but your
understanding of the principal issue that the case presents. Only when you know that
issue or at least have a preliminary idea of what it is, could you do a correct job of cutting
away useless data to get to the essential facts you need.

Equally important to getting rid of irrelevant matters is putting the events in the

Copyright 2020 Roberto A. Abad & Blessilda B Abad-Gamo. All Rights Reserved. For Use in Ateneo de Manila University - School of Law's Introduction to Law. (20 July 2020)
order of their occurrence. When the sequence of the events is in disarray, with
subsequent events told ahead of preceding ones or with frequent flashbacks to the past as
the story unfolds, you are likely to get confused. When reading a case create a timeline
that put things in order for you to get a better understanding of the facts. What benefits
do you derive from arranging the facts in proper order or sequence? The benefits
are as follows:

1. The facts are easier to understand when put in the order of time. The
reason is simple: they follow a natural order or flow. Actual human experience
occurs in the order of time where one event follows another with the ticking of the
hour. A story that jumps ahead, goes back to a previous event, and then returns to
resume its advance where it temporarily dropped off is unnatural. It can be quite
confusing. The human mind is not at ease with such a manner of story telling.

2. When facts are arranged in the proper order, you would clearly see how
each fact relates to or connects with others. Each fact acquires deeper significance
when viewed along with related facts. That Ronald sat on a piece of log with Julia
would be meaningless if seen in isolation. Before they sat on the log, she did not
want to talk to him at all. After sitting along side each other on the log, they had a
quick romantic reconciliation. Their sitting on the log acquires significance.

3. When the factual versions of either side are put in order and matched, you
would also be able to see clearly the areas where the respective versions agree and
disagree. This in turn will furnish you with a balanced appreciation of each
opposing claim.

4. Facts, properly arranged, prepare you for the work of writing up the facts
of the case in your pleading or memorandum.

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MATCHING THE FACTS TO THE APPLICABLE LAW OR RULING3

After working on the facts in your case, you would have produced an outline of
the facts that are relevant to the legal dispute that it presents. Now you are ready to make
a search for those specific laws or rules that, applied to the facts, will either help or
burden you in prosecuting or defending your side of the dispute.

There are two general sources of laws and rules: a) Statute law. This consists of

Copyright 2020 Roberto A. Abad & Blessilda B Abad-Gamo. All Rights Reserved. For Use in Ateneo de Manila University - School of Law's Introduction to Law. (20 July 2020)
laws and rules enacted by duly constituted rule-making authorities like Congress, the
President, the Supreme Court, local government councils, and administrative regulatory
agencies; b) Case law. This consists of decisions of courts and persons or agencies
performing judicial functions. These decisions interpret and apply statute law to specific
situations.

But just how do you locate the right law and legal precedents? Having become
familiar with the facts of your case, search for legal precedents that have more or less
parallel facts. Nothing is new in this world. You will discover that there is hardly any
new case that would have no parallel or similarity to a previous case that a court or quasi-
judicial body has once decided. Find the rulings in those parallel case, whether for or
against your side of the dispute. Apart from above sources of laws and rules, you have
rules that derive from the wisdom of common experience. These are especially useful in
resolving factual issues.

Having discovered the laws or rules that apply to your case, you should now be in
a better position to review your summary of the facts and add to it the other relevant facts
that you may have omitted. You could also subtract from your summary those facts that
now appear irrelevant to the applicable laws or rules and precedents that you have
discovered.

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Chapter 5: Knowing the Applicable Law or Rule, Fundamentals of Legal Writing.

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