United States Legal Language and Culture An Introduction to the U.S. Common Law System

InLegal English, experienced educators and professors Teresa Kissane Brostoff and Ann Sinsheimer answer the needs of law students and non-English speaking lawyers who are unfamiliar with the use of English in legal settings. They introduce readers into a new world of study of the law by carefully guiding them through the vital skills and techniques they will need to feel comfortable and proficient in English-speaking and American legal culture. Through the exercises in this book, readers will gain proficiency reading and understanding case law and statutes. Brostoff and Sinsheimer teach effective techniques for predicting an answer to a legal problem and for persuading an audience of a particular legal perspective. Each new problem presented in the text will also provide readers with an introduction to different practice areas in the law, giving students ample preparation for their first year of law school classes or for their LLM studies. By teaching students how to master both the English language and legal concepts and ideas, Professors Brostoff and Sinsheimer enable students and non-American attorneys to better communicate their ideas and analysis of law both verbally and in writing, using their new-found understanding of the language and culture of American law.

Teresa Kissane Brostoff is Professor and Director of Legal Writing at University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She researches, writes, and lectures on legal writing methodology and pedagogy, including methods of teaching international students. Professor Brostoff has taught English for Lawyers in many countries, including Serbia, Ukraine, Kosovo under State Department auspices, Iceland as a distinguished Fulbright Scholar, Japan, Poland, Ethiopia as an invited lecturer, Belgium as a Fulbright Senior Specialist and member of the EU LLM. faculty, and Bahrain under Department of Commerce sponsorship. Prior to joining the Pittsburgh Law faculty, Professor Brostoff clerked for the Honorable Justin M. Johnson on the Pennsylvania Superior Court. She also has recently been appointed to the Fulbright Peer Review Selection Committee in Law.

Ann Sinsheimer is Professor of Legal Writing at University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She has extensive experience as a teacher and consultant of legal and technical writing, and of English as a Second Language. She co-teaches a summer intensive program for international lawyers, and has had the opportunity to teach this course overseas in Ethiopia, Serbia, Belgium, Iceland, and other countries. She served as a lecturer and consultant at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan's English Language Institute. Before joining the faculty at Pittsburgh, Professor Sinsheimer worked at the University of Oxford's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics.