Weston Walsh, The Legal English Manual, 2nd Edition, Lawbility/C.H.Beck/Helbing Lichtenhahn/BarWrite Press 2017
Von cand. iur. Maren Wöbbeking, Göttingen
´The Legal English Manual is the first of its kind to use a practice-orientated approach specifically geared to legal professionals who use Legal English in their practice.`
These introductory words used in the preface to this handbook quite get to the heart of what can be expected from this title. With around 300 pages, the Legal English Manual presents a comprehensive guide for practitioners who want to demonstrate their ´lawbility`. Its authors are lawyers and linguists from Europe, the US and Australia that themselves work in or coach others in Legal English and as the praise for the 1stEdition show, the handbook does indeed address lawyers from all over the world.
The Legal English Manual basically consists of the three sections: Legal Terminology Manuals for Practice Areas, Legal Practice Manuals for Legal Writing and Legal Practice Manuals for Oral Communication.
The first section on ´Legal Terminology Manuals for Practice Areas` presents fourteen areas of legal practice that typically involve international elements and are, thus, well suited for this handbook. Understandably, the main focus can be found on commercial law, in comparison to rather short extracts on areas like family law and criminal law.
Inside this section one can recurrently find the sub-sections ´Key Legal Terms`, ´Sample Definitions` and ´Collocations Corner`. Apart from the legal content, the structure apparently reminds of textbooks used in school. And just likewise, this structure does fulfil its purpose in several ways.
On the one hand, the sub-sections present the most important legal terms and expressions that are used in the respective area of legal practice and on the other hand set them into context. Whilst many of the introduced terms are probably known to most non-native speakers and can easily be used in a sentence, the correct use of others can indeed cause difficulties. To use the example of Contract law, the book does e.g. introduce the expression ´to confer contractual rights` and shows how it can be used correctly (´Mr Clark’s actions seem to have exceeded the right the contract conferred upon him`).
Above that, everyone who ever tried to write or translate a legal text into English will have experienced the difficulties with finding the correct legal terms. The compilation of respective legal terms with sample sentences does, thus, in my opinion constitute one of the best parts of the Legal English Manual. Additionally, the terms are always presented in a British and an American English version.
The second section on ´Legal Practice Manuals for Legal Writing` consists of several different sub-sections. Whilst some of these deal with legal writing in specific, others represent rather general guidelines for written English. For instance, the section on ´Formal vs. Informal Correspondence` that emphasizes the above mentioned ´schoolbook` character with information such as to use ´Dear Mr/ Ms` instead of ´Hi` in a formal letter or email. Nevertheless, this information can probably be deemed as indispensable parts of a legal English manual.
Far more innovative are self-evidently those parts that concentrate on the typical topics of a legal case, for instance by presenting templates for a response to a request for documents or for correspondence to a client or to opposing counsel. A remarkably nice approach in this regard is the fact that the authors consistently add practical advice shaped by their own experience, for example by illustrating respective customs in certain situations. Noteworthy, this section on Legal Writing does not cover assistance for academic writing (e.g. there is no guide on citation) but – as the preface announces – concentrates exclusively on practical skills.
Section three on ´Legal Practice Manuals for Oral Communication` is by far the shortest section and is similarly structured to section two. Some of the sub-sections rather seem like a guide on how to be lawyer in general (such as the tip to place meeting notes in the client’s file and to thank the client for his/her time). Apart from these rather superfluous parts, the sections on phrases and expressions in negotiations, court proceedings and Job interviews are very nicely done.
To put it straight, the Legal English Manual covers some ´simple` parts but mostly presents a innovative and comprehensive guide for many situations that a legal practitioner will experience. Additionally, its structure and design are nicely chosen. From my point of view, the space that is left for ´personal notes` in several parts of the handbook seems a bit arbitrary and unnecessary. Nevertheless, the Legal English Manual is in fact a unique guide for legal practitioners in different fields of law and provides very good assistance. Above that, I would definitely also recommend it to law students participating in international moot courts.