Writing Matters
| Publication year | 2022 |
| Pages | 0058 |
Take a Memo to the File
The memo to Hie is not an anachronistic document. Even though the ubiquity of electronic communications has left fewer gaps in the record that lawyers make, memos to Hie can still be critical.
BY DAVID HRICIK AND KAREN J. SNEDDON
As legal writers, we compose a range of documents every day. Whether a motion for summary judgment or a contract, each document has a clear purpose, an intended audience and genre conventions. This installment of "Writing Matters" discusses a commonly created document: a "memo to the file." This installment shares the purpose behind the memo to file and presents strategies to improve its effectiveness. While the age of digital communication─ where many decisions are memorialized in email or text─a memo to the file remains a useful tool in every lawyer's toolbox.
What is a Memo to the File?
The phrase "memo to the file" is usually used to describe a document sent only to the file to record a decision, memorialize a conversation or describe an important event. In other words, the memo to file documents information that would otherwise leave no paper trail.
As one federal judge recently observed, "writing a memo to the file is common in a variety of settings."[1] They're "second nature to anyone who has worked as even just a midlevel manager in the federal government. ... [T]he first thing such an employee does if his boss is stupid enough to ask him to do something sketchy, is to write it down, to document in detail the what, the when and the where. Time spent managing, or even just working, in the federal government, teaches the habit of writing memos to the file."[2]
In the practice of law, a memo to the file can document a variety of key conversations or events.[3] For example, a memo to file may describe a series of conversations between a lawyer and a client about accepting a settlement offer. If a question later arises about the decision, the memo to file provides context. A memo to file may be created to memorialize the negotiation of contract provisions with opposing counsel. A client's decision to forego a claim, a defense or other legal right, for example, are other critical events that can be the subject of a memo to file. That is one reason why "lawyers representing attorneys in legal malpractice advise that memos to the file are critical."[4] Even in the digital age when emails are...
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