Advanced writing

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Lecture 1. 

MAJOR LEGAL SKILLS AND VALUES

  1. The goals of legal training 

  2. Fundamental legal skills

  3. Values and responsibilities of the legal profession 

  4. Criteria of good writing 

  5. Qualities of good writing

Lecture 2.

WRITE CONCISELY: PART I 

  1. Features of good legal writing

  2. Plain English movement

  3. Plain English techniques

  4. Do judges prefer Plain English or Legalese? Empirical studies with writing samples

Lecture 3.

WRITE CONCISELY: PART II 

  1. Remove phrases with multiple prepositions

  2. Remove nominalizations

  3. Remove redundant synonyms

Lecture 4.

WRITE CLEARLY

Use sparingly: 

  1. Legal archaisms

  2. Foreign words and phrases

  3. Clichés

Lecture 5.

AVOID MISUSING WORDS: PART I

Commonly confused words

Lecture 6.

AVOID MISUSING WORDS: PART II

Commonly confused words (cont.)

Lecture 7.

AVOID MISSPELLING WORDS

  1. Words with silent letters 

  2. Words with one double consonant 

  3. Words with two double consonants 

  4. Words with tricky vowels 

  5. Words with tricky suffixes 

    1. -able or -ible? 

    2. -ance or -ence? 

  6. E-expressions

Lecture 8.

E-MAIL CONVENTIONS

  1. E-mail layout 

  2. E-mail subject lines 

  3. E-mail content 

  4. Target audience 

  5. General e-mail tips

Lecture 9.

CONVENTIONS IN LETTER WRITING: LAYOUT

  1. Letter formats

  2. Layout guidelines

  3. Salutations. Form (BrE)

  4. Salutations. Form (AmE)

  5. Salutations. Punctuation

  6. Optional elements

Lecture 10.

CONVENTIONS IN LETTER WRITING: CONTENT

  1. Structure of a letter 

  2. Structure of a letter: useful phrases 

  3. A paragraph

  4. Structure of a paragraph: topic sentence

  5. Transitions

Lecture 11.

FORMAL LETTER TYPES

  1. Initial lawyer-client letter 

  2. Letter of apology 

  3. Payment received confirmation 

  4. Reminder of a past due payment 

  5. Forwarding a client’s letter 

  6. Letter of refusal