Week 5: Legal Argument Paper, Group Project (Topic Selection)

In this group project, you are required to conduct a legal analysis and develop a "legal argument" WHICH is merely a legal analysis. The premises of a legal argument consist of facts, laws, your interpretation of facts and laws, as well as the opinion of the person making the legal argument (of course, that's you!).

Your legal arguments need to be construction-related (U.S. construction industry), please do NOT use the case you cited for the ethics assignment. Many in the past have used claim situations from their own projects, that's fine. If you don't have that experience, then research a US-based construction claim case or situation.

For this week's requirement, your team will be selecting your topics and giving a one paragraph rationale as to why you picked those topics, and how your team intends to go about its process of researching your topics. Due Tuesday @ 11:59pm EST. APA Guidelines required: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html

Subsequent to submitting your outline, your team's next requirement will be as follows:

For your argument, please address EACH of the questions below:

1. What are the factsbearing on the case? The term fact applies to the events, or alleged events, that have led to a claim or lawsuit. The facts are important because they are the basis for your argument.
2. What is (or are) the issue(s) being discussed by the argument? The issue is whatever the parties are arguing about. The issue might be something like "Is the contractor entitled to payment?"; "Did the contractor breach the contract?"; etc.
3. What are the premisesof the argument? The most common type of premise in a legal argument is a law or some type of rule. Or could be the contract, an example being "a party must honor its contract."
4. What is the argument trying to convince you to believe? In other words, what is the conclusion of the argument

Please put your paper in the following format:

• Abstract (explaining botharguments, only one Abstract needed)
• Construction Arguments w/ two references
  • FACTS
  • ISSUE(S)
  • PREMISE
  • CONCLUSION
• Non-construction Argument w/ two references
  • FACTS
  • ISSUE(S)
  • PREMISE
  • CONCLUSION

Helpful hints:

Good sources for arguments:

• for the non-construction scenario, editorials, the evening news and/or political commentary.
• for the construction scenario, either your own experience with an argument or dispute, trade publication (again, commentary would work well).
• or of course, you canalways research the internet.

Bad sources for arguments:

• Letters to the Editor: although it qualifies, I suppose, for an argument, it's really only an opinion unsupported by any premises.
• Most newspaper stories contain no issue, conclusion and/or premises.
• I don't want you to provide a newspaper article about an argument, I want you to provide me an actual argument in the format above (facts, issue, premises and your conclusion).