Legal English -Advanced Commercial Legal Skills

Course details

Law Society Professional Training’s Legal English division are offering a one-week course this year over the summer months: Legal English Course: Legal English - Advanced Commercial Legal Skills, CPD Accreditation: Law Society of Ireland and Country Specific Bar Association Reciprocity

Aim and Objectives

A commercial lawyer requires a diverse array of skills to enable him or her to deal with clients and lawyer colleagues. These skills include legal research, legal writing skills, contract drafting, opinion drafting, drafting of correspondence between clients and other lawyers, negotiation and mediation skills.

This course is designed to provide interactive, hands-on experience where all of these skills will be taught through a learning-by-doing approach facilitated by expert commercial lawyers, negotiators and mediators. A library of template resources and documents will be shared for future reference.

Course Content

Legal Research

• Common Law and Statute Law
• Doctrine of Precedent and case citation
• Rules of statutory interpretation
• Researching National Law
• Relationship between National Law, EU law and the Constitution
• Researching EU Law
• Using on-line and paper based resources

Legal Writing skills

• Use of Plain English
• Inclusive language
• Style and grammar
• Use of clear/concise language
• Ambiguity - how to avoid it
• Problematic words and phrases
• Achieving legal and commercial certainty

Contract drafting

• Form and layout of a commercial contract
• Use of precedents and the role of schedules
• Analysis of common clauses (with illustrations of how clauses can vary depending on the type of the contract and the commercial objectives of the parties)
• Standard terminology
• Use of defined terms
• Tone and format
• Rules of interpretation

Opinion drafting

• Form and layout of a legal opinion

Drafting of correspondence

• To clients
• To solicitors

Negotiation

• Understanding the underlying transaction and taking instructions
• Establishing the commercial objectives of both parties and settlement ranges of the client
• Due diligence
• Pre-contract documentation (letters of intent, memorandums of understanding, subject to contract, ‘without prejudice’)
• The negotiation process in practice

Mediation

• What is alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and mediation?
• Acting for a client in a mediation
• Helping to mediate a dispute