Online Legal Writing Center

WRITING TOOLS:

This website will help you to avoid errors and to achieve excellence in legal writing. This site has resources about legal writing style, sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation. In addition to the information within the website, other basic writing resources can be found in the Chart of Additional Resources for Writing Skills and on CALI (Punctuation and Grammar Basics for Students and Punctuation and Grammar: Advanced).

USE OF AUTHORITY AND ATTRIBUTION:

This website provides resources about using authority effectively, providing proper attribution to authority, and avoiding plagiarism.

BLUEBOOK RESOURCES: 

This link provides you with two Bluebook Guides to help you with basic Bluebook rules: (1) a guide for practitioners and law clerks, and (2) a guide for journals and law reviews. For more detailed rules, reference the Bluebook, 20th edition.

RESOURCES FOR WRITING SEMINAR PAPERS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES:

This website provides a list of resources to assist you with writing a paper for a seminar course or with writing scholarly articles. The resources have helpful advice relevant to all stages of a scholarly paper’s writing process, including: thesis selection; the research, outlining, and drafting stages; time management tips; and the editing and polishing stage.

RESOURCES FOR DRAFTING JUDICIAL OPINIONS: 

A website to assist you with drafting judicial opinions. The resources provide pertinent information about drafting opinions, including the organization, content, and structure of an opinion as well as other substantive and practical tips for writing a court opinion.

ENGLISH-AS-A-SECOND LANGUAGE RESOURCES: 

For ESL students, this website provides a list of resources that would be useful for legal writing.

RESOURCES FOR CONTRACT DRAFTING:

The website provides list of resources to assist you with drafting contracts. The resources have helpful tips and considerations for drafting effective contracts.

RESOURCES FOR LEGISLATIVE DRAFTING:

This link provides a list of resources to assist you with drafting and writing legislation. The resources include textbooks that provide instruction on the legislative writing process.

RESOURCES FOR LAW SCHOOL EXAM WRITING​

This website includes resources to help you with law school exams. Specifically, the resources are useful to learn how to write effective essay exam answers.