Program Description

Advanced Legal Writing provides legal professional with an opportunity to improve their legal writing skills. This course explores contemporary, practical issues and is taught using an interactive, problem-solving format. Each student is required to have completed a course in Civil Procedures before taking this class.   Special emphasis is placed on producing clear, precise authoritative legal documents, including learning how to respond to opposing arguments effectively and analytical judgment.

About the Instructor

Mercedes Prieto Alonso-Knapp is the judicial law clerk to the Honorable Robert L. Shevin, of the Third District Court of Appeal. She has worked as a judicial Assistant at the Third District since 1989. Ms. Alonso-Knapp was appointed to the Appellate Law Clerk Education Committee in 1999. She received her B.S., Magna Cum Laude, from the University Of Miami with majors in English and Psychology. She received her J.D., Cum Laude, from the University Of Miami, where she served as a student author advisor of the University Of Miami Law review. Ms. Alonso-Knapp was a Legal Research and writing instructor at the Law School. Thereafter, in 1995, she joined Florida International University Legal Studies Institute as an adjunct professor.