General Course Information
1.1 Course details
| Course code: | LLAW3296 |
| Course name: | Legal Drafting for Future Practitioners |
| Programme offered under: | LLB Programme |
| Semester: | Second |
| Designated research course: | Not applicable |
| Specialization: | Not applicable |
| Prerequisites / Co-requisites: | No |
| Course offered to non-law students: | No |
| Credit point value: | 6 credits |
1.2 Course description
Legal Drafting for Future Practitioners is a skills-building course for law students preparing for practice. This course is designed to develop and strengthen students’ legal research and writing skills, concentrating on document drafting in practical contexts, identifying drafting errors in existing legal texts, and refining legal language for clarity and comprehension.
As a skills training course, Legal Drafting for Future Practitioners emphasizes participation and practice – how much you gain depends on how much you put in. Students will refine skills related to document composition and structuring, use of plain English in explaining complex legal topics, conducting research via multiple methods, problem solving, and improving legal reasoning.
The skills that you acquire in this course will be useful to you throughout your legal study and your future career. You will enhance your ability to analyze legislative and contractual provisions, as well as to compose precise and effective legal text in a variety of practical situations.
1.3 Course teachers
| Name | E-mail address | Office | Consultation | |
| Course convenor | Stephanie Biedermann | sbied@hku.hk | CCT 802 | By email |
1.4 Course outline (for elective course)
| Please click the link here for the course outline (HKU Portal login required). |
Learning Outcomes
2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course
CLO 1 Identify legal issues from factual problems and use appropriate legal research resources to locate relevant materials.
CLO 2 Critically analyze and assess legal texts.
CLO 3 Draft simple legal documents and document sections at a proficient level, demonstrating appropriate use of plain English and applicable legal terminology as well as the ability to express complex ideas clearly and concisely in writing.
2.2 LLB Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Please refer to the following link: https://course.law.hku.hk/llb-plo/
2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course
| PLO A | PLO B | PLO C | PLO D | PLO E | PLO F | |
| CLO 1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Assessment(s)
3.1 Assessment Summary
| Assessment task | Weighting | Feedback method* | Course learning outcomes |
| Class contribution and participation | 20% | 2, 3 | 1, 2, 3 |
| Writing exercises | 40% | 1 – 5 | 1, 2, 3 |
| Final project | 40% | 1 – 5 | 1, 2, 3 |
| *Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher) | |
| 1 | A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle |
| 2 | Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle |
| 3 | Individual review meeting upon appointment |
| 4 | Group review meeting |
| 5 | In-class verbal feedback |
3.2 Assessment Detail
To be advised by course convenor(s).
3.3 Grading Criteria
Please refer to the following link: https://www.law.hku.hk/_files/law_programme_grade_descriptors.pdf
Learning Activities
4.1 Learning Activity Plan
| Seminar: | 3 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
| Private study time: | 9.5 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
Remarks: the normative student study load per credit unit is 25 ± 5 hours (ie. 150 ± 30 hours for a 6-credit course), which includes all learning activities and experiences within and outside of classroom, and any assessment task and examinations and associated preparations.
4.2 Details of Learning Activities
To be advised by course convenor(s). See also Course Outline above.
Learning Resources
5.1 Resources
| Reading materials: | Reading materials are posted on Moodle |
| Core reading list: | TBA |
| Recommended reading list: | TBA |
5.2 Links
Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/