Professional Documents
Culture Documents
LECTURE 7
Paragraph
Using paragraphs makes pros more readable and helps to avoid cumbersome
clauses and sub-clauses.
Tabulation
a) Conference
b) A lecture
c) A seminar provided by the law society.”
Numbering
Where a series of points is being made, numbering may improve clarity and
later cross referencing e.g. of numbering systems are as follows;
The use of precedent is a good servant but a bad master. Do not start drafting
from a precedent until you have analyzed your client’s instructions and decided
on what you want to achieve. If you turn to a precedent immediately, you will
find that it controls you instead of being a helpful tool.
Benefits of precedents
Problems
Guidelines
1) Always decide what you want your document to do, before you consider
precedent.
2) Accept the fact that there may be no precedent that exactly covers your
situation.
3) Adopt the precedent to your transaction and not your transaction to the
precedent.
4) Use modern precedents, even modern precedents may have to be altered
if the law has recently changed.
5) Be careful if you bring a clause of a precedent into a draft document. The
clause may have to be altered to follow the definition on your draft to
make its style or language.
6) Do not copy words from precedents unless you are sure of their legal
effects.
7) Do not change words in a precedent unless you are sure the change will
not have an unexpected legal effect. This is particularly true for Wills.
8) Be wary of a document as a precedent which was drafted by someone
else in a transaction. The fact that the document has been used in a
transaction does not make it necessarily a good document.
Also, the document might have been slanted in favour of the party for
whom it has been drafted by that solicitor.
Language
The following advice is applicable in drafting documents, writing of letters,
reports and memoranda.
Padding
Try to avoid the use of phrases which lengthen a sentence while adding nothing
to its meaning .e.g. ‘until such crime as’, ‘in this instance’, ‘the fact that’.
Compound Preposition
You can use the verb itself rather than a noun derived from it. This creates a
more immediate effect. e.g. make an admission “admit”.
Jargons
Try to avoid jargons unless you are sure, the recipient will be familiar with it.
E.g. Mortgage sourcing information, clothing optional beaches.
Legal Terms
Legal terms should be translated for lay clients. e.g. Joint Tenancy, Decree
Nisi, Decree Absolute.
AMBIGUITY
“Where within six months of the date of purchase, the goods are shown
to be defective; we will repair or replace them”
Do you mean “and” or “or” consider this;
The use of “and” in the sentence suggests that the list is conjunctive. i.e. the
seller may do all of the things in it.
The use of “or” here suggests that the list is disjunctive. i.e. the seller may do
only one of the things in the list but it could also mean that, he may both serve
notice and either recover goods or retain installments.
“The seller may do all or any of the following or the seller may exercise
only one of the following rights”.
Expression of time
Discretion is created by the phrase “the company may retain the deposit if the
customer does not collect the goods on or before 30th June”.
In the second and third person “will” looks to the future. E.g. “I shall interview
the client tomorrow, I hope that you will sit in, after wards we shall discuss
the drafting”.