The Importance of Legal Writing in English

• Author: Evarist Beqiri - Inesa Toska
• Position: PhD Candidate, University of Tirana, Faculty of Law, Department of Public Law - PhD Candidate, University of Tirana, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Department of English
• Pages: 162-169

ISSN 2410-759X Balkan Journal of Interdisciplinary Research Special Issue No 1

Acces online at www.iipccl.org IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania June 2015

162

e Importance of Legal Writing in English

Evarist Beqiri

PhD Candidate, University of Tirana,

Faculty of Law, Department of Public Law

Inesa Toska

PhD Candidate, University of Tirana,

Faculty of Foreign Languages, Department of English

Abstract

Writing skills enable us to transmit our ideas and thoughts eectively through the medium of

writing. Writing skills help lawyers to express their ideas and legal opinions, convey arguments

and avoid ambiguity at the same time. Poor writing skills may lead to miscommunication and

misunderstandings as well. Can these skills be improved just like the other skills? Good legal

writing can be a real challenge for many students and legal scholars. is article emphasizes the

diculties students face with legal writing. ese diculties include language skills diculties,

topic diculty, lack of organizing thoughts and ideas before starting to write, text managing

skills, grammatical diculties, insuciency and lack of time. Students face the dual challenge of

understanding the content of the subject and expressing this understanding. is might be very

challenging for students with limited English language level. Topic knowledge is directly tied to

generating and organizing ideas. When students have insucient knowledge of the topic, it is more

dicult for them to generate ideas. In many cases students start to write without having organized

their thoughts previously and without having organized their research and analysis. ey start

writing without making use of an outline. Writing takes a lot of time. Students should be aware

that writing takes a lot of time and it requires several redras until the information is conveyed

in a clear and concise way. is article also focuses on some of the reasons why legal writing is

dicult to teach. Teachers may face many problems when they have to teach content in an area

of study about which they have little or no prior knowledge. e content may be very specic and

require a high degree of knowledge from the teachers. In most of the cases teachers don’t know

have enough knowledge in the eld of law since they are language teachers and not law teachers.

Is good legal writing possible and can it be achieved through the application of the principles of

legal writing? What are some characteristics of good legal writing? Good legal writing is clear,

concise and engaging. A well-written document helps the writer to achieve its goal. ere are many

activities and exercises which can help students to improve the skills of writing in a legal context.

Key words: Legal writing, diculties, challenges, characteristics, Legal English teachers.

Introduction

Writing skills are very important especially for those students who are eager to become

successful lawyers in the future. Writing skills can be dened as the ability to transmit

one’s thoughts eectively through the medium of writing. Law schools all over the world

pay special attention to the development of the writing skills of their students. Why

are these skills so important and how do they aect the job of a good lawyer? Writing