Law is the study and practice of our system of societal rules. It includes the fields of civil law, corporate law, constitutional law and jurisprudence. The 2 main areas that generate legal writing are legal practice (eg drafting laws, contracts and letters of advice) and academia (eg writing books, articles and essays). 

Because legal documents, statutory law and written judgments are binding, legal writing demands a meticulous attention to detail. Every word and phrase must be weighed carefully for its meaning, clarity and possible interpretation, both now and in the future.

This section covers:

• Legal writing style
• Challenges in legal writing
• Types of legal publications
• Legal writing resources.

Other relevant sections

How to:

• use clear and appropriate language
• write about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• write about evidence
• write about risk
• cite other work.

How to present and format:

• Australian regions
• country names
• ethnic groups
• geographical and political regions
• heritage-related terms
• state and territory government departments
• titles of documents and other resources
• acronyms and initialisms
• quotations
• references.

How to capitalise:

• conventions, treaties, protocols, codes and projects
• names of events
• job titles
• legislation
• national and religious holidays
• organisations and institutions
• political parties
• proper nouns.

How to make documents and resources accessible, including:

• text
• tables
• graphs
• word files
• PDFs.

How to format, design and include:

• photographs
• tables.

Related subject areas

Law interacts with all fields, including:

• Arts and humanities
• Government
• Social sciences.

Types of publications and content

• Web content
• Books and reports
• Journal articles
• Guidelines and manuals
• Presentations
• News articles and press releases