This article is intended to inform.

Its content does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon by
readers as such.

The reason is that legal writing is the central medium with which a lawyer
communicates his or her work. The most brilliant legal mind will have a
difficult time in the legal profession, if their writing skills are not on par with
their ability to effectively read, research, analyze, and reason about the law
and the facts of the case.

If you can effectively communicate in written form, your reader will fully
comprehend your analysis without having to retrace all of the steps you
needed to take to get to your conclusion. You will save your supervisor time
and effort, and you will establish yourself as a professional who is ready to
excel as a lawyer.

Be clear, comprehensive, and concise in offering complete and correct

information. Leave out irrelevant remarks that merely divert the focus of
what is important. Keep your audience in mind when determining how much
detail is required to make yourself understood. It can be helpful to remind
yourself that you are attempting to advise, or persuade, as the case may be,
and not to write a work of literature or poetry.

Secondly, take the time to edit what you have written, ideally more than
once. Every mistake in spelling or grammar will make your reader stumble
for a moment, pause, and perhaps reread the sentence. Such an interruption
takes away the focus from the argument you were trying to make and it will
inevitably leave the impression of a lack of care and, if repeated too often, of
competence as well.

If flawless grammar and spelling are not what law school teachers commonly
praise your work for, there is still hope. In the 21 st century, the technology
exists to mitigate such deficiencies. Much of such software is free and user-
friendly. Nevertheless, it may be good advice to attempt becoming
comfortable with the vocabulary, style, structure, and tone of voice lawyers
use daily. The obvious way to hone this skill is to read court decisions, legal
journals, and other relevant and quality materials.

Of course, polished legal writing skills do not come overnight. Seize every
opportunity to practice. If you get the opportunity to work under the
supervision of an experienced lawyer and draft legal documents for him or
her, make sure to read the final, edited product, so you can see what
changes were necessary and what you can improve. If you are still in law
school, do take a course on legal writing. It will without a doubt have a
This article is intended to inform. Its content does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon by
readers as such.

notable effect on your performance in every other class and on your

proficiency as a legal practitioner.
Lawyers write a wide range of other things, too: contracts, wills, trusts,
pleadings,
motions, interrogatories, affidavits, stipulations, judicial opinions, orders,
judgments, statutes, administrative regulations, and more. But instruction in
these
other forms of legal writing might wait until after you have learned more
about law
and procedure, perhaps in upper-class drafting courses, clinics, and
simulation
courses
Good legal writers write for their readers: “effective writers do not merely
express, but transform their ideas to meet the needs of their audience.”In a
brief, the audience is the judge, not the client or opposing counsel. To write
persuasively, a lawyer must grab the judge’s attention quickly, argue
concisely, and express clearly the relief sought.