Techniques of legal writing: contemporary realities

Abstract

Article deals with studying the techniques of legal writing. It has been determined that legal writing – tool, which is used in the process of creating legal documents. Legal writing is understand as any text prepared by a lawyer that has legal content, whether it is a half-page business letter, a hundred-page memorandum or legal opinion, a draft contract or a draft law, a procedural paper intended for submission to a court, or another document. The rules of legal writing were initially produced only in practical activities. Understanding of what legal writing is was formed gradually, as legal reality became more complicated. During the evolution of legal writing rules the qualitative characteristics of techniques, methods, ways of conducting legal work, which are included in the arsenal of legal writing, have been changed. The rules of legal writing in different legal families help answering for the following questions: formation of judicial precedent, use of the law in the Romano-Germanic legal system etc. To examine the connection between the notions of « technique » and « legal », we appeal to philosophical understanding of « technique » . It has been determined that « technique » – is a complex of human actions aimed at dominating nature, the purpose of which – to give to the life of person such an appearance that would allow him/her to remove the burden of need and find the form of environment he/she needs. It has been summed up that the function of legal writing is manifested in such a form of legal practice as law-making. As the result of improving the techniques of legal writing, the array of positive law loses its spontaneous character and becomes an expression of a certain preconceived structure subordinate to the logic of the internal structure. Juridical text – a written medium of legal information and one of the most important living forms of expressing the law. It has been generalized that the techniques of legal writing – component of legal technologies that is a system of professional legal rules, tools, techniques and methods that are used to ensure the constructiveness of the written construction and perfection of normative-legal acts.