Demand Letter Writing Lab Text
The following text has been extracted from the Request for Admissions Writing Lab.

READ THIS FIRST!

Welcome to the Legal Writing Labs! These labs take you step-by-step through the creation of various legal documents. The document you are creating should be based upon the client you were assigned (or chose). Since you would normally be able to contact your client and ask questions about the case, you may expand or change the facts if it helps. Note that you do not have to provide answers to any of the documents you are creating. 

After opening a Template using the above tabs, you should do the following:

1. In the Select a Document drop down box on the right, choose the document you are wanting to work on.

2. The drop down Instructions box will provide you with links to help for every element of the document. Those instructions are presented in the order in which the relevant material appears within the document itself. Simply refer to the instructions as you work on your assignment.  When you have completed all the steps, you should have a virtually completed document!

3. It is important to remember that the Writing Lab Template will allow you to modify the document, but does not save those changes. If your browser leaves the web page you are working on, your modifications to the document will be lost. It is therefore recommended that you copy and paste your work into Microsoft Word every 5 or 10 minutes to back up your work.

4. Copy and Paste the modified Template to create a new Microsoft Word document.

THE DEMAND LETTER is a very simple document that serves a very important purpose. In many, if not most, jurisdictions it actually fulfills an important aspect of litigation: The exhaustion of remedies. It is important that a Plaintiff, through the attorney, be able to argue that he or she went through every possible alternative before initiating litigation. In other words, the Plaintiff wants to be able to say, "I offered to settle this out of court in a civilized manner, Your Honor, but they said no!"

This can actually play an important role in determining the awarding of attorney's fees in some cases. That is because if a jury comes back with an award larger than what the Plaintiff had been willing to settle for prior to trial, the court may order the losing side to pay for attorney's costs in addition to the award since the the same result could have been achieved without litigation.

THE AMOUNTS
Don't stress too much about the amounts. Just make your best guess here. In real life, your attorney would dictate the amounts and you would simply fill them in.

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS
If there are documents that help establish the actual damages suffered, such as medical reports, accident reports, traffic tickets, or other relevant documents in your possession, you may want to include copies of them. However, do not feel as though you need to prove or win your case. Just provide enough to make the amount being requested appear to be legitimate. Again, your attorney will ultimately decide what to include. There is actually no requirement at this stage to provide anything!

SIGNATURE
The attorney, not the paralegal, should sign the Demand Letter.

COPY AND PASTE

Now that you have finished your new document, using the above template, you will need to COPY AND PASTE the text from the template to create a new document. Use the following steps to Copy and Paste.

COPY
First, click anywhere in the Template (this is important). You are going to SELECT ALL of the text in the document to copy the contents.

Second, press the "CTRL" key and the "A" key at the same time. You will see that all the text is highlighted. This is a good thing!

Third, press the "CTRL" key and the "C" key at the same time, or click on the "Copy" icon in the Template tool bar.

PASTE
Open up Microsoft Word and create a new document. Select EDIT and PASTE from the Menu Bar. Then save your document, using a name such as "Discovery01".

And that's it. We hope this LAB has helped. If it has, you can use this template in the future for other memos you create as a paralegal!