In a legal profession perfect written draft both leads to and precedes oratory success. Every legal document that is pertinent to a case, including every petition you file with the court, every petition you serve, and every reply you send, strengthens your case. Legal drafting of any document is the first and foremost step towards the success in a legal battle.
The outcome of the lawsuit is ultimately determined by every word and conversation you write and have with the opposing side. The opposing side will later analyse, interpret, and flip anything you wrote on its head. It's possible to infer intentions from the phrase that you had never considered. Every little inconsistency will be brought up and used against you.
You must not only write what you mean to say, but also consider how the other side might perceive it in order to use it against you. You must also write down whatever you do not intend to say in order to address all potential misunderstandings. In some cases, you must avoid leaving any legal ambiguity in your drafting, while in other cases, you will purposefully do so. You will occasionally use your drafting to set traps.
Not a single law school in the country can teach the art of drafting, the only way to learn is by practicing to draft by you or by observing the seniors who are really good at drafting because most lawyers fumble with drafting. Whether you are in-house counsel or an independent practitioner, legal writing is a skill that is in high demand and nearly a must-have for ALL types of legal professionals. Drafting is a highly sought-after skill, even in LPOs. Even more so than your oratory skills in court, your ability to produce perfect legal documents is crucial.
If you are unable to effectively edit your own writing, you are not a good writer. You must learn to weed out every last pesky detail from your writing until nothing but flawless quality is left if you want to produce the ideal legal draught. The most important skill to have when writing a legal notice, a contract, or even a police report is editing and reviewing.
This talent becomes even more beneficial and useful when you are writing a statement of claim for a thousand crore arbitration and you have to assist arbitrators in making sense of thousands of pages of papers. Making sure that your writing "makes sense the way it should" is the sole purpose of editing. It goes beyond simply choosing the appropriate words, eliminating grammatical and spelling errors, adjusting sentence structure, and even double-checking punctuation at the conclusion of a sentence. Despite their importance, those items are merely elementary.
The next step is to consider whether you are effectively communicating what you want to say. Are you confident that your point will be recognised and understood? What may the opposition claim be? If you add a few words here and there while you're writing, can you neutralise such counterarguments? Is there any way you can make it clearer and harder to miss? When writing legal documents, simplicity is a huge asset. Writing excessive amounts of useless text frequently causes more harm than good to our legal documents. Am I hiding my vital ideas behind unimportant topics or writing a bunch of rubbish that obscures them? A legal draftsman's most crucial tool is to eliminate the unimportant until only the most crucial information is left.
Understanding the law completely is the first and most important requirement for learning legal drafting. You won't be able to write anything of value unless you are familiar with legal complexities. You need to have a firm understanding of the facts you are drafting about in addition to the law. The pinnacle of legal drafting is the expert utilisation of facts in writing and the application of law that draws readers to an obvious and obvious conclusion. Knowing the law is one thing, being able to express that knowledge in your legal drafting is quite another.
A good lawyer does in-depth research on the subject, gathers more data than anybody else did and then presents a persuasive argument in which all the data is presented in a reasonable way however, a great one does the same but presents only as much information as is required.
They also possess the capacity to see beyond the obvious. A crucial legal drafting talent is the capacity to imagine many scenarios, justifications and potential outcomes. This is the most crucial ability, whether it is used to design contracts or arguments in a murder trial.
Once you master the abilities we just covered, you'll be able to construct practically any legal document quickly and easily. A document is a voice of a sender. In the legal profession, every written word is valuable because it has the ability to advocate, inform, instruct and persuade. This is why creating legal papers requires proficiency in the field.
Perfect writing requires ruthless editing. When it comes to leaving out words that are unneeded, set your emotions aside. Where the documents require extra clarification on a particular subject, don't be afraid to rewrite. Careful editing is necessary for legal writing. If your writing is riddled with spelling, grammar and punctuation errors, you risk losing your credibility as a lawyer. Your work can even be undervalued by your client. A well drafted document presented to court not only impresses the court but also helps the parties to case win the legal battle.