The Legal Writer’s Toolkit is an online support site for all those engaged in the practice of legal writing.
The Legal Writer’s Toolkit differs from traditional Writing Center models in that all the information is contained on this website, and no in-person support is offered.
This means that students cannot get individual help on specific writing projects, but they will have at their disposal a comprehensive group of materials to help them diagnose and overcome their legal writing issues as they are in the process of writing their documents.
Unlike in-person writing centers, which have limited hours of opening each day and which are usually limited to current law students in the physical location of a law school, the Legal Writer’s Toolkit materials are available to current law students, incoming law students, and alumni at any time and in any place with an internet connection.
Although the Legal Writer’s Toolkit will use a variety of media options to supply its legal writing content, the principal method of providing information will be short (five to 10 minutes) videos that will split each topic into short, easily digestible, portions. Legal writers will be free to watch all or some of each series of videos, allowing them to focus in on a specific part of a writing problem they’re experiencing or to view a general overview of the entire topic. There are no exams or other forms of assessments, and no record of who viewed what will be kept: participation in the Toolkit is voluntary and private.
Although well-placed to accommodate the needs of legal writers in the times of COVID-19, the Legal Writer’s Toolkit was actually conceived well before the current crisis. The project was born of a frustration with the inability of the traditional legal writing center model to provide equal access to writing support for all legal writers who might want it, whenever they wanted it. By putting writing support online, in the form of documents and video content, we hope to encourage all legal writers associated with Syracuse University College of Law to view as many of the materials as are helpful, and to do so as often as is helpful.
There will be legal writing material created specifically to address the needs of incoming law students, present law students, and alumni, but all material is available to everyone to view. New modules will be added all the time, and we encourage you to return often to this site to see what new material is now available.
In addition, you are encouraged to contact us to suggest additional modules that would be of particular help to you: we will do our best to add writing information that is particularly helpful to you.
