Differences between a Legal Brief and Legal Memorandum

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Brief vs Memorandum

  • Legal brief: Document produced by a party during a court case. The brief is aimed at making an argument in favour of one party. It outlines the main points of the case and is aimed a convince a judge to agree with that side's argument. See Structure of a Legal Brief.

  • Legal memorandum: Informative internal document that contains the results of the legal research conducted by lawyer on/for a specific case. It is a more objective assessment since it focused the facts of the case and the applicable laws. The document serves a tool to discuss the case at hand and come up with arguments to present to court. See Structure of a Legal Memorandum (Memo).

Choose the right style

Five style rules for a brief

1. Avoid alphabet soup.

  • The alphabetical short forms for the names of the parties, statutes and agencies become meaningless.

  • Use the persuasive force of words.

2. Use the parties' names.

  • Don't refer to the parties by their status (e.g., “the defendant”) unless court rules require otherwise.

3. Rarely use block quotations.

  • Try to find pertinent quotations of fewer than 50 words.

4. Use argumentative headings.