The "Two Piles" Approach to Legal Research and Writing

David Hricik, a Professor of Law at Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia, advocates a simple, two-step approach to legal research and writing: First, when reading the legally pertinent cases, focus first on the result the court reached, not what the court said or what the facts were, and create two piles of cases, one for the good cases and one for the bad. The second step is to read all the bad cases and place them in the pile in the order of how difficult they are to distinguish, and then read all the good cases and place those in order as to their support of your position. Then, use the two piles to write. Read the entire article to get the details.