Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Waikato Law Review

Jones, Peter --- "A Little Something about Writing" [1995] WkoLawRw 10; (1995) 3 Waikato Law Review 181

A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT WRITING

BY PETER JONES[*]

In September of this year I was given the task of marking over 250 Contracts opinions, submitted by LLB students in Law 1 and Law 2. I offer the following advice in the hope that it will be of benefit to students who intend to pursue a career in law. The following comments also serve as an indicator of the point we have reached in modern education and writing standards.

1. WRITING IN ENGLISH

All papers were submitted in the English language. The following comments therefore apply to the whole class, although some students need the advice more than others.

It is wise to recall that the point of any written work in the law, whether in an opinion, correspondence, or a contract, is to express thought. For that reason, clarity and precision of expression are the basic necessities. If you do not express yourself clearly and precisely, then people can misunderstand you. And, as has often been said, if people can misunderstand you, then they will do so.

To assist in expressing your thoughts clearly in writing in English, here are a few pointers:

1. Sentences have verbs. Verbs are doing words.

2. If you do not know very well what a word means, do not use it. You can use your dictionary to learn very well what a word means.

3. The apostrophe's function is to indicate possession of something, as in “the apostrophe's function”, or to indicate that you've left some letters out of words, as in “you've left”. There is one major exception to the possessive use of the apostrophe, which is that “it's” is short for “it is”. Its use is for that purpose only, and the possessive is “its”, as in “its use”.

4. The plurals of words are used to denote more than one of things. You add the letter “s”. You do not use apostrophes. You do not write the first sentence of this paragraph as, “The plural's of word's are used to denote more than one of the thing's”.

5. Write in short sentences if at all possible. Make sure that each separate sentence makes sense on its own. Each sentence should express its own thought.

6. Separate different groups of thoughts into paragraphs so that your reader can perform the same separation.

7. Every error in spelling or punctuation is important. Even if the meaning can be discerned, the reader's attention is diverted from your thought to your error. That diversion does not help the reader become an understander of your thoughts.

8. Over many years of having been exposed to writing from all over the world, we on the staff have learned that if we cannot work out from their writing what people mean, then it is they who are not thinking properly.

9. The English language has developed a huge number of words each to cope with different things. Near enough is not good enough; the point of having the different words is that they mean different things.

II. WRITING A LEGAL OPINION

1. The point under 1.9 above is emphasised in the law. There is an old Law Latin tag which, when translated, says that to express one thing is to exclude the other. Another principle deems the use of different words in a document to be for the purpose of referring to different things.

2. The point under 1.2 above applies even more strongly to technical terms and to technical legal terms. Use a law dictionary, preferably a current New Zealand one.

3. When you are asked to express an opinion, you are to do just that. It is not good enough to say that a court could decide either way. Because the problem is not cut and dried, and because a decision might go either way, a client or supervisor comes to you for your expert opinion on what the outcome should be at law.

4. A problem in the law will probably not fit into one neat little box. Usually, there is a range of potential solutions. You need to consider all the alternatives. Most civil matters in the courts have multiple alternative causes of action pleaded in them.

5. Adjectives and adverbs lend colour to expression in fictional and poetic writing, but more usually than not detract from understanding of legal argument. In a similar vein, jokes which work well in speech often fall flat in written submissions.

6. All legal documents, whether opinions, letters, contracts, or conveyancing documents, need layouts which assist and do not hinder understanding. Readers must not be required to move back and forth in the pages to make sense of what you have written.

7. If you the lawyer fail to express yourself clearly and concisely, you will be treated sarcastically, brutally, or both. You will have no choice in the mode of treatment. Such treatment may, furthermore, result in your being ignored, to the ultimate detriment of your income.

[*] LLB, MComL (Auckland), barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato.