Advanced Legal Writing Skills

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Aims

This course aims to provide participants whose main language is not English with an understanding of the conventions of written academic literacy, with a focus on legal writing at LLM level. It also aims to improve participants’ ability to write a variety of text types, to improve sentence-level lexis and syntax and to produce both coherent and cohesive written work.

Description

The course is designed to run over two terms. The first term (8 weeks) will focus on improving accuracy, clarity and coherence in legal writing and provide academic guidance for LLM students throughout their coursework. The second term (6 weeks) will be devoted to providing advice and support on dissertation writing and intensive examination preparation.

This advanced Legal Writing Course will include:

• Thinking critically within an academic legal framework
• Planning and responding to academic legal essay questions
• Developing legal argumentation and counter-argumentation
• Practising legal summaries and paraphrasing skills
• Enhancing complex language and grammar structures
• Broadening legal terminology
• Examining extracts from law reports, analysing statutes, cases
• Dealing with sources of law and areas of legal specialisation
• Verifying data
• Referencing and bibliographic citation
• Supporting LLM dissertation writing
• Preparing for LLM examinations

Delivery and Methodology

Classroom activities include a mixture of individual, pair and small group work, based on a variety of material and exercises. Students will also complete pieces of writing in class and at home, which they will be encouraged to self-correct on the basis of comments from both tutor and peers. They will also be given recommendations for further self-study, with an individualised self-study plan.