A bespoke legal writing guide as a feedforward resource: improving non-law students’ engagement and performance in law modules

Abstract

ABSTRACT Law schools are frequently tasked with teaching law modules to non-law students. Anecdotally at least, these students are often considered to have poor legal writing skills and this in turn affects their levels of engagement and attainment. This article reports on an action research study conducted with 453 business students at the University of Limerick. The study involved an anonymous student questionnaire (n = 69), which was designed to measure, inter alia, increases in student confidence, clarification of assessment expectations, and the overall successfulness of the Writing Guide as a feedforward resource. Open-ended questions were also included to capture unpredicted benefits reported by the students. It is argued that the successfulness of the writing guide is attributable to its status as a successful piece of feedforward. A proposed checklist of key aspects of a legal writing guide is offered.