Joe Doe, your supervising attorney, has numerous cases piling up, and a family vacation planned this week. He has been very pleased with your work at the firm, and thinks you are up to the task of finishing a Motion to Dismiss on the John Smith case. John Smith was accused of defamation by Betty Boop. Her Complaint filed against Mr. Smith is the first attached below.

Joe Doe has prepared the basics of the motion he would like to file. The client is upset by the whole case and would like it dismissed–he claims he didn’t “defame” anyone. Mr. Smith made one comment during a private phone call to his wife. Mr. Doe has informed you that Texarkana follows the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He has included some citations to the law, but hasn’t had time to finish the motion. He has asked you to complete the statement of facts portion of the motion, as well as ensure the entire motion is free of spelling and grammatical errors, and is structured appropriately (he has a habit of going from single spacing to double and such). The firm has a practice of citing to information from the complaint, throughout a motion to dismiss, by placing the following after any sentence containing facts from the Complaint: (Complaint at ¶_). Instead of the underscore, you should insert the paragraph number corresponding to the fact from the complaint. Mr. Doe has also requested you double check to be sure all of his citations have not been overturned, and correct the citations highlighted–he can’t recall the missing information. He forgot to add a certificate of service, which he hopes you can quickly add in as well. You should be able to find a sample of the firm’s preferred structure for a certificate of service in the Answer you drafted for Abel, last week. He hopes your edits will result in a motion that is ready for his signature, so that the motion can be filed by the deadline with no issues. The initial draft is the second one below.

LIMITS ON YOUR WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT. If your lawyer ever gives you a draft memorandum that looks like this, my suggestion is that his/her issue is much more than leaving on vacation.:):) And please keep in mind that I am not looking for every I dotted and every T crossed. There will be plenty of time for that detail when you begin your first job and are instructed regarding how your law firm/lawyer likes work done . Please simply focus on a professional presentation. Please do not check the citations.