Legal Research & Writing

This course covers the following 3 areas:

• Legal interviewing
• Legal research
• Legal writing

Legal Interviewing

Rules of Professional Conduct and Practice (Law Society of South Australia)
These Rules are basesd upon the Model Rules of the Law Council of Australia, effective 1 March 2003

Legal Practictioners' Act 1981 (SA)

Legal Practitioners' Regulations 1994 (SA)

Chapman, J. Essential legal skills : interviewing and counselling (1993)
Chay, A and Smith, J Legal interviewing in practice (1996)
Hyams, R, Campbell, S and Evans, A. Practical legal skills, 2nd ed. (2004), Chapter 2
Lauchland, KA and LeBrun, M. Legal interviewing : theory, tactics and techniques (1996)
Wolski, B. Legal skills : a practical guide for students (2006) chapter

 

Legal Research

Please refer to the web pages of How to Research Legislation, Case Law and the Legal Literature.
For researching International Law please please refer to our webpage on International Law resources.

Other resources to which you might refer include:

Christopher Enright, Legal Skills

Campbell, E, Lee, Poh-York and Tooher, J. Legal research : materials and methods, 4th ed. (1996)
Cook, C, Creyke, R, Geddes, R and Holloway, I. Laying down the law, 6th ed. (2005)
Enright, C and Sidorko, P. Legal technique (2002)
Nemes, I and Coss, G. Effective legal research, 3rd ed. (2007)
Watt, R. Concise legal research (2004)

 

Legal Writing

Australian Guide to Legal Citation, 2nd ed. (Melbourne University Law Review Association)

Australian encyclopaedia of forms and precedents held in Reference collection, Stack 1.
This is a 16 volume looseleaf encyclopaedia which has some handy tips on drafting, and provides forms and precedents (ie contract precedents) for everything from Advertising and Apologies through to Wills. A useful practitioner's tool.

Plain language and the Law (Law Foundation of New South Wales). This is a very useful website of information on writing in plain language and includes a bibliography, writing guidelines and checklist.

Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 5th ed. AGPS, 1994. This is the definitive government text on good writing. It has an excellent summary of good writing tips, and sets a standard for creating documents covering everything from spacing, inserting tables, forms of address, symbols, and document layout.

Other resources...
Enright, C and Sidorko, P. Legal technique (2002)
Hutchinson, T. Researching and writing in law, 2nd ed. (2006)
Hyams, R, Campbell, S and Evans, A. Practical legal skills, 2nd ed. (2004), Chapter 4.
Keyzer, P. Legal problem solving : a guide for law students, 2nd ed. (2003)
Krever, R. Mastering law studies and law exam techniques, 6th ed. (2006)
MacDonald, R and McGill, D. Drafting (1997)
Macken, C. Law student survival guide: 9 steps to law study success (2006)

Meehan, M and Tulloc, G. Grammar for lawyers (2001)
Wolski, B Legal skills : a practical guide for students (2006) Chapter 5

You will also find books on plain language and the law at K100, and books on legal writing and legal composition at K101