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LPC Law Notes Skills Notes

Professional Legal Research Writing Notes

Updated Professional Legal Research Writing Notes

Skills Notes

Skills

Approximately 38 pages

A collection of the best LPC Skills notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through dozens of LPC samples from outstanding students with the highest results in England and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor". In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of Skills notes available in the UK this year. This collection of notes is fully updated for recent exams...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Skills Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Professional Legal Research & Writing: Presenting your research memorandum

PLR & Writing assessed together

You need to hand in a research project

CHECKLIST

General points

Writing

  1. appreciate the ‘plan, write, revise’ approach to Writing;

  2. plan the content and structure of a memorandum;

  3. practice revising a poorly written memorandum;

PLR

  1. determine the scope and identify the objectives of the research and address all relevant legal and factual issues;

  2. identify the legal context and be able to analyse the legal issues and identify, prioritise and use relevant primary and secondary sources, including standard practitioner texts, journals, case authority and legislation;

  3. keep a methodical, accurate and complete record of the research undertaken;

  4. draw clear conclusions and identify courses of action; and

  5. present the results of their investigation and research in the form of a research memorandum as practiced

  • do not write a letter or anything else

Writing and PLR

  1. triple check the presentation of the results of your investigation and research.

Specific points

First, always ask yourself:

--> Who is the reader? How will this affect your reading?

  • Another solicitor? Then don’t explain concepts, cite case law fully as they might wish to look it up

  • A company director? Will know certain things like company procedure but won’t be interested in knowing full case law citations or statutory references

  • Someone who doesn’t know anything about law? Need to explain everything in simple words, do not refer to specific cases or statutes as they may be confused

--> What is the purpose of your communication?

  • First advice? Explain everything, include a summary of the issues

  • Follow up correspondence? Only answer specific questions, don’t summarise and don’t crowd the document with unnecessary information that has previously been discussed

Secondly, check: what is the primary focus of our advice?

Present the legal issues you are asked to address and apply them to the case

Tip: Work in three stages

STAGE 1 – ANALYSING THE PROBLEM

Four steps:

  1. Summarise the problem

Try to summarise the problem in a few sentences.

It helps to sub-divide this in the following way:

  • Person X is charged with offence y.

  • State what the prosecution has to prove.

  • State what the relevant law is.

  1. Identify material facts

Again try to cut it down.

Should only be 3 or four points.

Try to write in bullet points.

Who are you action for?

What happened?

  1. Identify legal issues

Ask: How is the prosecution going to prove that person X is guilty of offence y under statute z?

Again, these should only be a few points.

Tip:

Really think about the problem with which you are faced.

The issues are not the same as the original question(s) you have been asked in the memorandum.

Consider:

  • What does the client ultimately want to achieve?

  • What, if anything, is the client complaining about, or objecting to?

  • How might the client achieve its goal or solve its problem?

  • If the ideal solution is not possible, are there any alternatives?

  • What are the potential obstacles/difficulties/costs?

  • What factors might make a significant difference to the outcome?

  • Are there any risks the client should be made aware of?

  1. Select key words

Key words to searching information

Try the obvious ones first – narrow down to maybe 3.

You will find other relevant key words from there.

STAGE 2 – TRACK DOWN THE INFORMATION

Initial tasks:

  • What are the client’s objectives?

  • this is what you should focus on

  • Likely sources?

  1. Secondary sources

Use at least (!) 2 secondary sources

Examples:

  • Law Society Website

  • Encyclopaedia on the relevant area

  • Parliamentary Notes

  • Practitioner texts

  • Journals

  • Textbooks

  1. Preliminary analysis

Secondary sources help find out the background of the relevant law and give a good overview.

Can also be helpful in finding new key words.

  1. Primary sources

You always (!) need to list primary sources – this is essential

= Black Letter Law

  • Legislation

    • Primary Legislation

      • Acts of Parliament

    • Secondary Legislation

      • Statutory Instruments

      • Statutory Codes of Practice

  • Case Law

Always think: How do these primary sources apply to your client’s problem?

Tips:

!! always check whether statute applied at the relevant time

It could be that an earlier statute was applicable

!! always read footnotes!

Very often, the information you need to solve the problem is contained in footnotes, i.e. hidden to make it less obvious

When researching, keep a well-structured RESEARCH TRAIL.

Use a checklist – for example:

  1. Summary of the problem

  • Start with summarising the problem in your own words

  • Not more than a few lines

  1. Material facts

  • Identify and isolate the material facts

  1. Legal issues

  • Identify and isolate the legal issues that the problem is raising.

  • Frame as questions

  1. Key words or phrases or natural language string

  • Make a list of key words or a combination of key words to search under.

  • Tip: Do not forget to list synonyms!

  1. Sources

  • List suitable sources

  1. Secondary Sources 1 – Record of research

    • Look up key words

    • Note relevant law

    • List primary sources

    • Update

  2. Secondary Sources 2 – Record of research

    • Look up key words – any new information?

    • Note relevant new information

    • List any primary sources

    • Update

  3. Primary Sources

    • Find relevant law...

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