Mastering Legal Analysis and Drafting seeks to emphasize the fundamental structure and methods of legal drafting, which, the authors contend, are grounded in a surprisingly few, elemental rules and techniques of legal analysis and deployment of legal authorities amid relevant facts. It is designed to help the novice legal drafter identify those elemental rules and techniques and show how they are used to prepare effective legal writing in different formats, most of which share common elements and structures.

The book begins with a discussion of legal analysis, followed by a discussion of general drafting principles and rules, and then proceeds to apply these concepts in the following chapters to specific forms of legal writing including:client letters, demand letters, research memoranda, motions and supporting documents, appellate briefs, contracts and instruments, and legislation. It closes with a chapter on "writing to build a record" that reprises the other chapters and highlights the key concepts.