Legal Writing Tips for Students

Legal Writing Tips for Students

There is a high chance that you have been writing essays in college before going to law school. Or maybe during your career or placement, you probably have written memorandums, articles, or other papers. Legal writing is a whole new field for a number of freshmen at law school. 

Nowadays, possessing good writing ability is not considered an advantage but rather a must-have skill. This is particularly true if you are in a work environment that relies on collaboration and messaging between people. Careers such as medical practitioners, lecturers, attorneys, salespeople, and so on depend on written communication if they are to be successful in their different fields. 

Professional academic writers from a law essay writing service help anyone who wants to transition to legal writing whether you are a student or in the workforce. Below are some tips for students who would like to venture into legal writing.

Legal Writing Tips for Students

1. Strategize 

The first thing you want to do is strategize in advance the goal of the paper you are about to write, who your audience is, and what you want to put across. You can ask your friends and workmates their thoughts about the topic you want to write about. This will help you outline a flawless strategy for your rationalizations. 

Start with a headline (and this headline will form the divisions in your article). When you look at this headline, it will clearly tell you what you want to discuss and in what way. If your headline is clearly put down, it will make writing the rest of the article an easy task.

2. Overview 

An overview should be included and should have a clear objective summary. This objective summary should show the point you intend to discuss. For example, “This thesis is about XYZ. Specifically, I will discuss…”. You can also state why this discussion is of interest, it’s importance, which gaps it will fill, its relevancy, the background, the consideration you are speaking of and the writings you are including, etc. All these points should be geared towards catching the eye of the reader.  

3. Guideline 

Tell your audience the steps you will be following to build your thesis. You can divide the article into parts and summarize each part, such as: “The first part talks about…” “Part two will be about…” “The third part examines…” and so on. Your job is to make legal writing an easy read for the audience. Take them through the steps of introduction, body, and conclusion in a succinct way.

4. Layout 

The layout gives the intention of the article, containing an individual clause. This should be in line with the strategy and guidelines. The division and section should characteristically assist in building or developing your object to establish or disapprove an exception. It can also assist in article ending.   

5. Point First Writing 

This is a requirement in legal writing. It is where the initial phrase of every single section should plainly tell what the section is about. In the body of the section, deliberate and explore what was written in the initial phrase. 

6. Line of Reasoning 

For the theory to develop, you need to put in your line of reasoning. Also, remember to deal with opposing ideas. If you ignore the matter that is in contrast, the readers will not be persuaded and will leave a lot of unanswered questions about it. You should balance notions for and against your thesis and, if necessary, show why your opinion is more convincing, better, and at best reasonable.   

7. Wording

The way you structure sentences is very important together with spelling. Typing errors, having two whole sentences joined incorrectly, careless grammar, and a lot of jargon will sidetrack readers. Readers are more drawn to language that is straightforward, simple, comprehensive, and natural wording. 

As much as everyone writes in their own way, readers will not be drawn to articles that have been written carelessly. There is no rush in going over the article as soon as you are done. Take a few days before going back to read it again. This will give you a new point of view and anything that was unnoticed before can be amended. Always get another opinion apart from yours by giving another person to have a look at it.  

8. Resources

The best way to persuade readers about your arguments is to provide them with supporting resources. These might be primary resources or secondary resources. Show them evidence, case studies, thoughts from experts in that particular field, scientific study of society as well as first-hand experience if applicable. Give a brief summary of your findings because when it comes to legal writing, the assumption is that the person reading it has gone through the resources that you have provided if in doubt.  

9. Consistency 

For you to write a piece that will catch the eye of the reader from beginning to end, it is important that you are consistent. Do not startle the person reading it, but just be consistent. 

10. Requirement 

It does not matter what you are writing - whether a memorandum, a thesis, a brief, etc. – ascertain that you have understood what you are expected to write about. Read the guidelines thoroughly and execute the directives such as limit of a number of words, reference formats, targets, restrictions, guidelines of academic decency. 

11. Legal Jargon

One important thing to learn if you want to start legal writing is legal jargon. Words such as judges, plaintiffs, defendants, appellants, respondents, judgments should be used correctly. Additionally, you need to know the difference between when someone is using the correct legal terminology and filler words that do not add any meaning to sentences. Avoid being too wordy and using complicated terminology when presenting your argument.  

Legal writing tips are just like any other tips you follow when you want to write a good paper. When one is transitioning to legal writing, they will need to learn the terms that the legal fraternity. Ask for help from experts in this field or even someone who does court work to look through your articles and give feedback. With these tips, you can become an expert writer in no time!