Elements of good legal writing (Writing Intensive Course)

Why is it important to have a good legal writing style?

• You will advance your legal career;
• Your written work will influence your cover-letter writing in applications;
• You will develop an accurate, pithy, factually correct and objective writing style;
• You will advance and enhance your professional reputation;
• As a solicitor your written submissions will go directly to a partner, a peer, a client,
another law firm, a court or judge (skeleton argument);
• As a barrister, your work will go directly to a solicitor who hired you, opposing
counsel or to the judge in court;
• If you are working as an in-house lawyer, your work will go to your superiors, peers,
other departments, solicitors/ barristers who hired you; possibly the press.
There is no better time than now to begin to improve your legal writing style.
Mandatory elements of a good legal writing style
• Grammar (re-familiarise yourself with the basic building blocks of English grammar
and the common vocabulary e.g. noun; adverb; adjective; preposition etc)
• Punctuation
• Spelling
• Proof-reading your work
• Generally, legal sentences are short and to the point. Avoid long sentences – rather
break these down into fewer shorter sentences.
• Capital letters only for names or places (rather than all nouns) e.g. Lord Denning was
a judge of the House of Lords Appeal Committee; the Court of Appeal is not the
highest court in the land.
• Use the conditional tense (may; might; ought to) – particularly in criminal law
problem questions;
• Gender neutral language (he/she/they)
Words to avoid
• Any adverbs or adjectives which denote your personal opinion;
• obviously; clearly etc.;
• Avoid ‘like’ use instead: such as…
• Never start a sentence with ‘I’ and generally avoid over-using the first person
singular;
• Subject and verb must agree: I was; we were; they were etc.
• Avoid ‘he’ as a generic pronoun e.g. a criminal is innocent until s/he is proven guilty;
or criminals are innocent until they are proven guilty.

Constitutional Law in Context (Writing Intensive) LLAW4222 1

The writing task: find the case of Bull v Hall [2013] UKSC 73 on one of the legal
databases (Westlaw or Lexis)
Task 1:
1. Who are the parties?
2. What is the case citation as per OSCOLA?
3. Which court was the final hearing in?
4. Give the legal chronological case history and in each stage write down who is the
claimant and who is the defendant; provide exact dates of each court.
5. Which date was the final hearing/ which court?
6. Who are the judges? Provide full names and titles.
7. Provide the subject matter
8. Find the headnote: prepare the summary of facts of the case accurately
9. Provide a summary of the judgment (is any judge dissenting?)
10. What are the leading precedents? Provide two approved cases; two considered
cases; any overruled cases?
11. Provide the details of the current appeal
12. Provide the names of leading counsel in the appeal (i.e. barristers for the appellant/s
and for the respondent/s)
13. The judgment: the most senior judge who delivers the leading judgment; the other
judges to they agree/ disagree – provide their judgments & opinions in brief)
14. The decision: is the appeal allowed? Who appeals exactly?
15. The ratio - this is a joint statement made up of the simple material facts of the case,
the leading judgment and why the case was decided in this way, setting a precedent
for all future similar cases.
Task 2:
Write down the material facts of the case in no more than 500 words.
Task 3:
From the law report define the following definitions by using relevant legislation citing in
detail sections from statutes or articles from the ECHR or relevant regulations.
1. Religious belief and sexual orientation
2. Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation
3. Direct or indirect discrimination
4. Proportionality in relation to human rights law
Task 4:
1. What was the Strasbourg human rights court (ECtHR) ruling in Eweida v United
Kingdom (2013) 57 EHRR 8, taking into account the overall proportionality
assessment in relation to an employee's right.
2. What does Lady Hale rule in her leading judgment in relation to sexual orientation?
3. How does the court apply s. 3 HRA 1998?

Constitutional Law in Context (Writing Intensive) LLAW4222 2