‘Writing Skills for Legal Professionals’ workshops

Dates and times

to be arranged with the participants

Length

6 teaching hours (3 sessions 90 minutes each, two 15-minute breaks in between)

Venue

Legal English Centre, Dąbrowskiego Street 20-22a/ 5, Poznań

Participants and level

The workshops are ideal for busy legal professionals who have contact with English speaking clients on a daily basis and those who rely heavily on written communication in their jobs. Participants should be at least at the upper-intermediate level (B 2) regarding their general English skills.

Objectives

The workshops serve as a refresher on the principles of effective writing in English. If you struggle when writing a text, if you wonder whether your style is modern and professional enough, then this event is for you.

Method

The workshops are strictly practical since a small group (up to 6 people) proves ideal for an individual approach to each participants’ writing needs. Practical guidance is to be offered as to how immediate problems while drafting could be remedied.

Distinguishing feature

As the workshops are designed to deal with individual areas for improvement, each participant will be asked to submit their samples of writing (up to 3 pages A4, without any sensitive information) prior to the workshops. Consequently, each participant will receive feedback as to their strengths and weaknesses in writing and further recommendations for tackling and improving particular linguistic areas.

Distinguishing feature

During the workshops participants will be able in particular to:

1. revise the principles of clear, brief, effective and professional writing in business correspondence, e-mails, reports, etc.

2. identify and resolve common troublesome areas for Polish learners:

  • ambiguity,
  • sexist language,
  • nominalisation,
  • words easily confused,
  • overuse of passive.

3. practise proof-reading and document correction as well as learn the practical tips how to approach this skill in a systematic way.

4. revise the most useful grammar points in relation to legal texts:

  • how to express obligations, authorisations, limitations,
  • problematic “shall”,
  • where to punctuate in English,
  • where articles are desired,
  • problematic transitive/intransitive verbs.

Materials

The examples of the sentences are derived from authentic samples provided by participants and compiled by the lecturer, all in the context of legal English terminology.

The lecturer

Agnieszka Chojecka is going to conduct the workshops and guide their participants through the intricacies of English formal writing style. She has been specialising in teaching business English for 22 years and legal English for 17 years now. Her efforts focus on teaching practical skills and enhancing learners’ autonomy.

Price

The fee for the workshops is PLN 1000 gross, which includes the cost of the training materials.
A discount of 10% is available to all previous LEC students.

Registration

The registration deadline is 14 days before each date of the workshops. A further deadline of 7 days is to submit writing samples.

Contact details

Legal English Centre, Agnieszka Chojecka agnieszka.chw@wp.pl, m. 600 600 550