Legal Writing and Drafting Skills
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Legal Writing and Drafting Skills Course
Introduction:
Legal drafting refers to the preparation of various written legal documents, such as motions, letters, briefs, memos, and contracts. It encompasses more than simply putting words on paper, as it involves understanding the underlying law, employing effective negotiation strategies, and successfully concluding transactions.
The Legal Writing and Drafting Skills training course enhances lawyers' performance, resulting in reduced supervision time, improved leverage, and increased profitability. By clarifying potential areas of legal risk, the course mitigates the likelihood of claims. Additionally, it promotes client satisfaction by producing clear and easily comprehensible documents, thereby minimizing the risk of future contractual disputes.
Course Objectives:
By the end of the Legal Writing and Drafting Skills training course, participants will be able to:
- Apply plain English style of writing to all legal documents
- Recognize the need for legal clarity in different types of legal documents: legal letters, emails, memorandum and opinions
- Apply good legal writing practice
- Demonstrate the register of legal writing
- Correct common mistakes in legal writing
- Dispense and deal with pitfalls and issues relating to the use of legal jargon
- Proofread effectively
Who Should Attend?
Legal Writing and Drafting Skills training course, is ideal for:
- Lawyers, legal secretaries, commercial managers, contract managers and anyone who must draft, amend or update contracts, legal letters and legal opinion.
- The course is suitable for non-native English speakers looking for a better understanding of English legal terms.
Course Outlines:
Taking the right approach
- Discussion of the lawyer’s role and the importance of asking the right questions
- Identifying and allocating risks
Drafting letters and Proofreading
- Structure of a typical agreement
- The dangers of poor drafting – how the court might interpret your drafting
User-friendly drafting
- What does effective legal drafting look like?
- Six techniques for producing clear, user-friendly drafting
- Improving poor drafting
Drafting from scratch using precedents
- A four-stage approach to drafting from scratch
- Drafting key clauses
- Making the most of precedents and templates
“White-water drafting”
- Danger areas where drafting is particularly susceptible to disputes
Refresher on “boilerplate” language clarifying the legal meaning (based on case law or statute) of many standard words and phrases