It argues that legal readers judge a document to be well-written if the writing helps them make the decisions they need to make in the course of their professional duties.
Law schools face increasing pressure to improve instruction in practice-oriented skills. One of the most important of these skills is legal writing.
The existing literature on legal writing contains various rules and suggestions as to how legal writers can improve their writing skills. Yet it lacks an adequate theoretical account of the fundamental nature of good legal writing. As a result, legal writers are left without a conceptual framework to ground the individual rules and suggestions.
A strong emphasis on legal writing, a change in grading policy and examination of real-world legal problems are all part of a drive to put the UW Law School in the forefront of a movement to improve the communication skills of aspiring lawyers.
It starts by examining a foundational conceptual issue, which is what legal writers mean when they say that a legal document is well-written. It argues that legal readers judge a document to be well-written if the writing helps them make the decisions they need to make in the course of their professional duties.
Law schools face increasing pressure to improve instruction in practice-oriented skills. One of the most important of these skills is legal writing . The existing literature on legal writing contains various rules and suggestions as to how legal writers can improve their writing skills.
A strong emphasis on legal writing, a change in grading policy and examination of real-world legal problems are all part of a drive to put the UW Law School in the forefront of a movement to improve the communication skills of aspiring lawyers.
Prior to this semester, all law courses were graded on a numeric score – except legal writing, which was graded with a letter grade that was not figured into that all-important numeric average. But last fall, Law School faculty approved a change that requires legal writing classes to be graded numerically and included in a student’s average.