Legal English Feedback on Case Brief Tasks

Written Case Brief

Content & Task Achievement

Overall the task was very well done and nobody failed. However, some case briefs omitted important information such as the names of the parties or the legal issues. Identifying the legal issues is the most important aspect and should not be confused with the ruling and the facts. Pose the legal issues as questions to help you. 

Organisation

Use heading in the written brief not the  linking language from the oral presentation which is inappropriate and/or redundant e.g. I'll be presenting ....  

Accuracy

1. Tenses

Need to be consistent. Present Tense OK for bullet point form but Past Tense better. When the facts are quite complex and the order of events important - use your full range of narrative tenses to make this clear (Past Simple and Continuous, Past Perfect Simple and Continuous).

They have been married for two years before they divorced.X

They had been married for two years before they divorced. 

2. Vocabulary

parts - parties    
Appliant - Applicant? Appellant?
sentence    - decision/judgment/verdict  

Word Forms - reimburse (v) reimbursement (n)    
Collocation & Verb Structure - relate to, promise of paying - promise to pay
Countable and Uncountable Nouns - evidence, litigation, legislation are uncountable and therefore always in the singular with no indefinite article.

3. Sentence Structure      

Put your subject first
The Court ruled that it does not exist an obligation. X
The Court ruled that an obligation did not exist.
There exists no valid contract. X
No valid contract exists.

Use verbs rather than nouns
He proposed a counterclaim. X
He counterclaimed.

Oral Presentation

Content & Task Achievement

Writing the brief beforehand meant that everyone knew their case well and could talk about it with confidence and authority. 

Organisation

• Generally, all presentations would have benefitted from more signposting. If you know your topic well and have a lot of information, you can confuse your audience if you don't outline your points clearly and communicate your structure to them. 
• Students who were unsure of their structure or who relied too heavily on their written notes tended to ramble and become repetitive. 
• Use your formulas: If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them now. rather than Questions?

Vocabulary

Generally excellent - everyone used a good range of accurate, appropriately collocated legal English.

Delivery

• Some persistent pronunciation errors e.g. vowel sounds /violated/, "th", suffixes /confirmed/
• Some students need to Slow down, others to speak up
• Be aware of end rising intonation
• Work now on intonation and chunking to sound more natural and to turn hesitations into pauses.
• Use notes as a prompt not a script.

Accuracy

Correct the following errors: 

many evidence

datas

depend from

for asking money

He then appellated