Course Objectives
Legal Writing and Drafting Skills
Course Methodology
The course consists of group discussions as well as individual and team tasks. There will be writing practice throughout the exercises.
Course Objectives
By the end of the 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
Target Audience
This course is 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.
Target Competencies
- Drafting letters
- Proofreading
- Writing in plain English
- Understanding legal terms
- Legal writing practice
Note
The Dubai Government Legal Affairs Department has introduced a Continuing Legal Professional Development (CLPD) programme to legal consultants authorised to practice through a licensed firm in the Emirate of Dubai. We are proud to announce that the Dubai Government Legal Affairs Department has accredited EMG Associates as a CLPD provider. In addition, all our legal programmes have been approved.
Course Outline
- Legal Drafting
- Signs of a well drafted contract: The simple rules!
- The language of drafting: Will v Shall v Must
- Identifying the legal formalities for a binding contract
- Structure and formation of a commercial contract: follow the formula and you won’t go wrong
- The importance of Boilerplate clauses: overlooking them can cost the business billions of pounds.
- The preliminary documents- using Heads of Terms effectively
- Vague words and expressions in commercial contracts- know the pitfalls!
- Overview of cross border contracts: Distribution v Joint venture v Agency agreements
- Share Purchase Agreements: allocating risks between the buyer and seller
- Troubleshooting: trace and correct errors in your contract
- Plain English in Legal Correspondence
- Good legal writing practice
- Moving from legalese to Plain English
- Unnecessary archaic and meaningless phrases
- Collocations
- Pitfalls and issues relating to the use of legal jargon in legal writing
- Writing short emails
- Writing long emails
- Writing formal emails
- Writing A Legal Letter
- Layout of a letter
- Body of a letter
- Putting a letter together
- The register of letter writing
- Typical sentences in legal letters
- The letter writing clinic: looking at the ten most common problems
- Rewriting letters
- Rewriting informal sentences to modern alternatives
- Correcting common mistakes in letter writing
- Legal Writing Troubleshooting
- The problem of English idioms
- Rephrasing English idioms
- Easily confused words
- Cutting unnecessary words
- Use of consistent terminology
- Ambiguity: how to avoid it
- Vagueness: how to avoid it
- Misuse of preposition in dates
- Problem words
- Constantly litigated words
- Personal pronouns
- Choosing the right words
- Rewriting sentences to remove gender specific language