Legal English: Young Lawyers

Preparing yourself for your legal career

Typical course participants

This three-week course is for newly qualified lawyers and law students to give them the specialised language they will need for their careers.

Course content summary

The course includes legal case studies, communication strategies, meetings skills and negotiations. We also cover the general language skills that will help you to communicate effectively in a wide range of formal and informal situations. The vocabulary covers civil law (including contract law), EC law and criminal law. The trainers are specialists with expertise in this field and there is important input from the real legal world including sessions led by practising lawyers and visits to ‘legal London’.

Benefits of doing this course

Whichever course you take with us, you can expect to improve your English in the following ways:

communicate more confidently
speak more accurately and fluently
participate more successfully in meetings
improve your written English including emails
expand your professional vocabulary
improve your understanding of grammar
socialise and network with greater confidence
work successfully in a cross-cultural environment

In addition to the benefits outlined above, this course will enable you to communicate more confidently in legal situations and use specialised legal vocabulary more effectively.

Course content

The course concentrates on developing participants’ English skills in a legal context, and the vocabulary of aspects of criminal law, civil law, including contract law, and EC law is covered on the course. Although there are opportunities to learn something about English and EC law and the English legal system, this is a language course, not a course in law.

The following areas provide the framework for the course:

Visiting legal experts: there are usually two per course, chosen to provide up-to-date professional input into the course. At least one will be actively involved in practising law.
Visits to legal London: a visit to the Old Bailey; a visit to the Civil Courts if they are sitting.
Speaking activities including case studies in legal problems and various aspects of the legal process; negotiations.
Vocabulary expansion: particularly relating to commercial law, contracts and describing legal concepts.
Grammar: revision of some of the most important grammatical aspects of the language, practised within a legal context.
Listening comprehension: with live speakers; by using audio and video interviews with lawyers or legal experts.
Negotiating skills: important for lawyers as they become increasingly involved in the commercial process.
Communication skills: key language skills used in discussions, negotiations, conflict and dealing with difficult situations.
Social English: basic situations such as business hospitality, travelling, inviting, advising, apologizing etc; more advanced situations demanding tact and careful presentation.
Using the telephone effectively.
Optional TOLES examination

At the end of each three-week course, there is an optional fourth week preparation course for TOLES (Test of Legal English Skills). The TOLES examination itself takes place at the school at the end of that week.

Sample timetables

View Sample timetable Week 1.
View Sample timetable Week 2.

Factcheck

Group size maximum 10
Age 20 - 30
Average age 25
24 hours per week (24 x 60 minutes)
09.30 - 16.00 Monday - Friday
Fixed start dates.
Course length 3 weeks (optional 4th week for TOLES preparation)