Legal and judicial skills

May 30-31 2019, Academy of Justice within CTP organized training on Legal and Judicial Skills. Purpose of this training was to extend knowledge of the administrative staff on the role and importance of legal and judicial skills.

First day of this training elaborated on the following: legal writing principles and skills, IRAC method of legal writing and application of this method in practice. Second day of this training elaborated on the following: legal research techniques and the process of good legal writing.

Initially, it explained and elaborated on modern standards of legal writing and reasoning – which is part of daily work for each official of the court and prosecution, therefore it is a prerequisite for the quality increase of judgments and other acts, and consequently it’s a prerequisite to increase the efficiency and public trust in judicial decisions.

This training emphasized that good legal writing distinguishes by accuracy – having a solid legal basis; analysis – not to be simply a statement or overview of facts and opinions; organized – have order in its outline – the titles; comprehensive – cover all aspects; specific and concrete – not ambiguous; logical – have a structure and organization, correct – grammatically accurate; punctuation marks; convincing – make the reader believe what is written; easy to understand.

Also, it was explained about the steps before writing, like: 1. Setting the goal - why is the document needed for; 2. Setting the audience – who will use the document; and 3. Determining the obstacles.

In relation to IRAC method (Issue, Rule, Analysis and Conclusion) it was emphasized that it consists of main elements used in the legal analysis. It is a process through which all the lawyers think about every legal problem. By using this formula, the complexity is reduced into a simple equation.

This training was delivered in combined method of lecturing and using case studies, to be followed by interactive discussions facilitated by trainers, through analysis and elaboration of the topic, focusing on implementation of legal writing principles and skills through the IRAC method, and the legal research techniques, exercising them through assignments solved by participants in working groups.

Beneficiaries of this training were professional associates, legal officers and legal assistants-secretaries.