Roejenn Rizz Humiwat

Summary of Legal Academic Writing Seminar (Preparing for Supervised Legal Research (SLR))

Session 1: Legal Academic Writing and the Importance of Legal Scholarship

According to the speaker Legal Academic Writing is not limited to writing and legal jargon, but also orally.
Some people excel in writing but can’t express themselves verbally, and vice versa. Legal scholarship and
legal writing are not limited to the usual law journals due to the ubiquity if information communication
technology and the diversification of means of communication lawyers have found themselves.
Traditional journals are being eclipsed by electronic to reach a mass audience. However, legal scholarship
and writing must distinguish itself in a way to ensure its integrity from the age of misinformation.

Legal Scholarship is defined by the speaker as an existing legal discourse on an issue that can influence
the way people think especially decision-makers and policymakers, often they will rely on scholarly
works. It is one means by which the law can try to catch up in a few instances it can try to anticipate
development and try to propose frameworks and rules for what may be a future issue and can serve an
educational purpose.

Legal Academic Scholarship depends primarily on thorough and rigorous research. It involves not only
understanding the words, being able to read them, and understanding the legal landscape but also being
able to identify gaps and contradictions and areas where clarification is needed. A good academic writer
is to be able to communicate with non-lawyers. A skill needs to be honed over time.

Session 2: Law Research Strategies

The speaker differentiates academic writing and practical writing. Academic writing is directed toward
the future whereas practical writing is to advocate or advise academic writing. Practical writing is
directed to decision-makers, immediate and short, such as pleading while academic writing is the
academic community as well as the judiciary and policymakers, a good academic paper is written for
much longer. Practical writing s preferable if the audience is legal audience while academic writing needs
the understanding and awareness of other people who have already written.

He also mentioned literature and jurisprudence to use in order to engage with arguments. The study of
interdisciplinary approaches can help develop expertise. It is important also to determine legal issues,
gaps in the law, and a topic that interests the person conducting the research personally. The law library
website can also be a good reference. The writer has to make sure that the audience is aware the paper
is a low paper, not a political science or sociology.

Session 3: Writing Papers beyond SLR.

The speaker emphasizes to write as a lawyer it has to be with (1) logic – the internal consistency. It is
difficult to write a paper just to complete the SLR course, and (2) rhetoric, how you express – the use of
words. Self-awareness and schedule are important to tackle big tasks by breaking them down into small
manageable pieces. Citation must also be in practice.