Tips To Effective Legal Writing

The hoi polloi, it seems, has an inherent aversion to "legalese

," which is language littered with legal jargons; the general perception is that any piece of legal document is hard to decipher. An authoritative and formal tone is the hallmark of any piece of legal writing. So for someone associated with the legal profession, a lawyer, legislator, or a judge, the challenge is to come up with a piece of writing that is also comprehensible to one and all.

The golden rule of effective legal writing is to make the logic in your arguments stand out. So before you take up the pen, organize your thoughts. A good idea is to create an outline first; this will help you identify any disjoints in your logic and thus organize effectively.

Begin with your conclusion, which may be your point, prediction, or argument. Then go on to substantiate with statistics, research findings, or analyses using plain simple reasoning. Do not keep any fuzzy areas in your analyses that may be open to interpretation; these weaken your conclusion.

The signature of a clear piece of legal writing is in the roadmaps and signposts that are liberally strewn around in the document. Include roadmap paragraphs here and there that delineate the structure and organization of the about-to-come content. Inserting headings and sub-headings too, serve this purpose.

Signposts in your writing are transitional sentences or signaling words or phrases that string two thoughts. These can be phrases like "The primary feature is... " or "The second most important cause is...."

After you have fleshed out the outline, edit your document. Read every sentence to check that there is no ambiguity in meaning and contains nothing that distracts the reader from the point of discussion. Also check your sentences for verbosity; probably nothing irritates a reader more. Then check if the paragraphs form a coherent whole. One paragraph should ideally concentrate on one idea.

Clear, direct, and simple-if your legal writing is all these, then be rest assured that you have hit the nail right on the head.

by: Aliceshown

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