selfjustice

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



Attention!

Deleting your account is irreversible and will result in losing all your data, settings, and access to our platform. Are you sure you want to proceed?

Press ‘Confirm’ to permanently delete your account.

Remember: Once deleted, your account cannot be recovered. Proceed with caution.