Legal drafting is an art which involves preparation of legal documents that are reduced into writing including the substance of underlying law, negotiating skills, arguments, and strategies for client’s representation and ability to close a transaction. It is an essential part of legal writing, where a legal issue or problem is analyzed with regards to the binding legal text and then duties, rights, and liabilities of a person or a legal entity are crafted. Understanding of legal context, specific area of law and knowledge of the language used by the courts and attorneys are important while drafting any legal document, including but not limited to, contract, agreement, demand letter, settlement letter, motion, response to the motion, mediation brief, complaint, appellate brief, etc.
While drafting a legal document, one must keep in mind a few things, like, organizing of thoughts before writing, use of clear and simple language, avoid unnecessary words and lengthy sentences, appropriate use of legalese, scope of amendments in future, anticipation of the impact on the interpretation, precise and concise matters, details of events or documents in a chronological order, etc.
A legal professional who drafts a legal document should always focus on his audience while drafting and should be aware of the need to enhance his professional drafting skills. Drafting of any complex legal document has to be done with immense care to make it flawless and with all the efforts to facilitate strong arguments in favor of the concerned party and places heavy reliance on the authority.