How to Become a Legal Content Writer: The Definitive Guide in 2022

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So who is a Legal Content Writer?

A legal content writer creates content by taking legal topics that are complex to understand and breaks them into a form that is readable by a common person.

Legal writing generally falls under the arena of technical writing where there is the production of material that can be used in the legal domain.

A person who is a professional in this domain not only educates the reader while keeping his or her attention and enticing him or her to call a law firm but also uses SEO techniques to ensure that the content is noticed by search engine spiders.

They are commonly called by advocates and judges to write laws, various rights, and duties entitled to individual and other legal analysis. Moreover, this legal writing involves writing in a specific kind of format.

Work available in this category ranges from analysts to brief writers and more.

Legal analysts work is, to sum up, case law or legal news and provide a gist of it

Their work is to analyze the legal news

Brief Writers

Their task is to do legal research and write legal papers such as briefs of a particular case or memorandum attached to papers.

Corporate writers

Their main focus is on academic writing and cover brochures to presentations.

Feature writers

They mainly write legal articles which can be used for publication.

How to become a Legal Content Writer

Becoming a legal writer basically requires more qualifications than a normal content writer. It requires awareness of legal knowledge and certain legal terms.

At the onset, the legal content writing that is more specific may even require a law degree or a law course for it.

The people who are in high demand for this are paralegals; nonetheless, the pay rates are also high in this field.

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Is it necessary to have a law degree?

Now that you know how to become a legal content writer it is important to know whether you require a degree to be a legal content writer. The answer to it is no.

It is not necessary to have a legal degree but it is better to have a legal degree to understand the intricacies of law and might help in getting the trust of more clients towards you to some extent. Generally, a high school diploma is sufficient to become a legal content writer.

For instance, you might not have a law degree, however, you can still work as a legal content writer in Los Angeles as a divorce lawyer or provide legal content to any law firm that attracts the common people.

One can also work as a copywriter or provide blogs to a particular legal firm for maintaining their website.

Skills necessary for a Legal Content Writer

Here are a few skills that a legal content writer must develop to excel in the profession.

Writing Skills

Focus on writing skills is a must. Legal writing is very technical and requires a constant check on the content that follows all the formats of legal documents for instance a will or a deed.

Research skills

A legal content writer must have excellent research skills. He/she needs to find out content from the authorized sources and cite those accordingly using citation styles as per the requirement.

Needless to say, deep knowledge of the legal field is also important. It is also necessary that a legal content writer must know legal jargon, terminology, and maxims.

Attention to Detail

Attention to detail is also a vital skill for a legal content writer. Be it from citing the sources to writing the articles or section, details are important. Focus on formats and proper spacing is also essential.

Technology and Basic SEO

A legal content writer must have awareness of basic technology skills like handling emails and how to use word processing software. SEO techniques and HTML to make content that is easily available.

Well Organised

Initially, a legal writer needs to start with making an outline of thoughts of what needs to be written. Making this aid the writer to see if the argument makes sense before focussing on the details. Moreover, it also helps the writer to focus on important points and get more clarity before writing.

Plain language

A legal writer should be vigilant enough to use plain language with shorter sentences. Large sentences can often distract the mind of the reader and do not serve a positive purpose. The ideas should be expressed in plain language to avoid complexity in the understanding of the reader.

Precision

Needless to say, a legal content writer should have clarity in his mind and should be accurate while writing his ideas out. It is one of the important principles to be followed by the legal content writer and he/she should not divert from the facts or argument available and should be specific with the details.

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Moreover, legal writing does not involve the expression of personal feelings and emotions

Citing the sources

One necessary aspect to write content is to keep citing the sources to make the document more authentic. Citing is important however a balance has to be maintained.

While you do not want to miss out on crucial facts from a topic, you also do not want to overburden the document with citations to the point where there is no new material to support the case at hand. So, you should be careful of what needs to be cited and what not.

Avoid legalese

Though legal content writing is often technical, one should avoid using too many legalese-legal terms and legal jargon. You may use the legal language while referring to the case laws; however, while explaining the provisions plain language is more preferred as the reader does not have to continuously search through other material.

Use of active voice

One of the principles is to use an active voice while writing the legal content as it makes information more clear, concise and leaves no space for the reader to make further interpretations.

Punctuations

Often legal documents become technical because of incorrect use of punctuation or some missing punctuation. A legal content writer must be vigilant enough to use correct punctuation so that the reader can understand the content better.

There are certain techniques, be it in the form of additional software or AI techniques which can be used by a person writing legal content to improve the quality of the work.

Here is an insight into some of the tools that can be used to make your legal content writing stand out.

Draft Lens

Draft Lens tool helps in the contract drafting process. The main function of it is to make it easy for a content writer to find a precedent and old case laws with similar facts, add more details, and help in the formatting of the document by putting it in a concise way.

It also uses techniques to make further changes in the document which Word and Word plugins cannot do. Moreover, it also helps in handling documents in large numbers.

Check Draft Lens

Litigation Companion

Tired of preparing briefs of a case sitting for long hours. No worries, there are simple techniques available for that as well.

Litigation Companion is a tool that helps to create a table of citations in just a click. It also reduces the time of proofreading to up to 90 percent.

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It also helps in reviewing the documents and editing work.

Check Litigation Companion

Working procedure

This tool identifies the citations after scanning the document and then automatically generates a list of tables of citations in a predefined place.

Loio

This tool helps in reviewing MS Word and helps in drafting the contracts easily and quickly. It has options of fixing the format of a document; helping with various styles, numbering, and bulleting, and giving an overview of the document.

Check Loio

ProWriting Aid

ProwritingAid can help the writer to make the content error-free in terms of grammar and spelling.

It has a grammar checking feature called detailed reporting which helps in making further improvements in the document.

A content writer can get reports for the categories of grammar, cliché, readability and styles etc.

PerfectIt

A wide range of professionals use this tool to improve their documents. It helps in proofreading the document and checking italicization and various legal terms used in the content.

It also uses an ALS style sheet which is basically based on Black’s Law Dictionary-the ultimate guide for law professionals.

Check PerfectIt

It is very easy to gain visibility and get clients for legal writing. This is all becuase of the online space which has opened up. There are numerous free and paid platforms you can share your online portfolio.

As a must create an account on LinkedIn and mention it in your About Section.

Create accounts in the following channels and make sure you fill in the about section. You might not start posting immediately but reserve the spot for you.

  • Start a Blog – Your own blog is the best way to position yourslf as a writer
  • Medium
  • JournoPORTFOLIO create an online portfolio. Has a free and Paid version
  • Quora
  • WordPress.com This has free and paid options
  • YouTube
  • Facebook Page
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Clippings.me – This has a FREE version which is more than enough
  • Contently – https://contently.com/register You can create an online portfolio. You get the opportunity to work with big brands

I always advocate starting your own freelance legal writer blog. This helps you position yourself as an expert in your field. You can learn SEO and a bit of digital marketing which can help you charge higher fees.

What to share on your Blog or Social Media Channels

Share about your industry, any reforms, new and old laws. Share your insights and use the right hashtags to increase reach.

I have a few legal blog topics you can talk about in your blog or across other platforms. The key is to keep your profile active, share relevant content ( relevant to legal content).

Create a Portfolio on Fiverr