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Tips to Legal Writing Including Things to Avoid

Tips for Legal Writing

  • Write concisely and write short sentences. Try to keep your sentences 20 words or less. 
  • Focus on one idea per paragraph to make your writing easy to understand. 
  • Make sure your writing is serious and only include information applicable for your application/trial. 
  • To ensure your writing is clear and concise, read it out loud. A good rule of thumb is that if you need to re-read a sentence to understand it, you should probably rephrase it. 
  • Think about what you want to write – what are you asking for and why as well as what evidence do you have? This will organize your ideas and ensure your writing will be fluent. 
  • Furthermore, be specific by providing exact details (such as dates) and be accurate with the statements you are making. 
  • Stay consistent with your writing by using the same term or name for something. 
  • Moreover, pretend your readers do not know about your situation, so provide 1-2 sentences of context to help them understand your case. 

 

  • Make sure you clearly state what it is you are asking for – state your point at the start of your document and then support your point using evidence and submissions. 
  • A professional tip is to type out your document if you can. 
  • Read over your document multiple times and get someone else to edit it so that you can catch spelling and grammar mistakes.  
  • Lastly, get a lawyer to legally review your document as they can catch errors that you may not be able to see. 

 

 

Things to avoid in Writing

  • Avoid using wordy phrases like “for the reason that” or “adequate number of” and avoid writing long sentences. 
  • Do not try to be humorous or sarcastic with your writing, and avoid going into detail about your relationship. 
  • Do not contradict yourself – you do not want the judge questioning your honesty. 
  • Remain neutral and truthful with your statements as exaggeration may harm your case. 
  • Do not state accusations as facts. You want your reader to be able to reach their own conclusion, you are simply presenting them the facts. 
  • Avoid slangs, idioms and acronyms



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