legal writing

Maine State Legislature. Office of the Revisor of Statutes

The Office of the Revisor of Statutes of Maine State Legislature is responsible for the drafting and editing of legislation for the state of Maine in the United States. The Revisor's Office also maintains a database of statutes, and publishes the statutes online. This site publishes two documents: the Revisor's Report which details non-substantive changes to the database of statutes (e.g.

American Society of Writers on Legal Subjects

Website of Scribes (the American Society of Writers on Legal Subjects) which describes itself as a "national society of judges, lawyers, law professors, legal publishers, legal writers, and legal editors who are dedicated to improving legal writing across the profession". The site gives information on the history and activities of Scribes, contact details for officers of the Society, committees and an online copy of the constitution.

Clarity

Website of Clarity, an international association of lawyers and interested lay people, whose aim is to promote the use of plain language in the legal profession. Clarity run seminars on legal drafting and publishes a journal approximately twice a year, which is presented in PDF format on the site.The journal includes articles, book reviews, news items and a section on practical drafting. Issues are freely available in full-text back to 1997. Other relevant articles also appear on the site along with a booklist and links to the websites of other plain language practitioners.

Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities

The Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is a style guide and legal citation system devised by the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford , now in its fourth edition. OSCOLA is available on the Faculty's website in pdf format, together with a quick reference guide. It covers abbreviations, cases, legislation, books, articles, online sources and other materials; it also provides guidance on presentation and cross-referencing.

Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations

The Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations is produced by the University of Cardiff. It is a database of abbreviations of English language and selected foreign language legal publications including law reports, law journals and major treatises. The search engine allows titles to be searched using any keywords appearing in the title of the publication and abbreviations can be searched using all or part of the abbreviation. Results provide the official abbreviation, alternative abbreviations, the ISSN and the jurisdiction to which the publication belongs.

Introduction to Basic Legal Citation

A guide to basic legal citation written by Peter W. Martin and made available in HTML on the Legal Information Institute website at Cornell Law School, New York, USA. The guide is aimed at law students and deals with the citation of 'contemporary U.S. legal material'. It is based on 'The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation' (2005) which is the definitive work on legal citation. The guide was last revised in May 2007.

Typography for Lawyers

The Typography for Lawyers website is provided by Matthew Butterick, a civil litigation attorney based in Los Angeles. It is a guide to typography for people who are not professional typographers - and for lawyers in particular. Topics covered include bold, underlining, centred text, hyphens and font types.

Open Access Law Program

The Open Access Law Program is an initiative of Science Commons a publishing project promoting "free access to scholarly literature without undue copyright and licensing restrictions". The site provides access to a range of principles and agreements that authors and publishers can adopt. These include the Open Access Law Journal Principles, the Open Access Law Author Pledge and the Open Access Model Publishing Agreement.

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