ABSTRACT
English for lawyers is a commercial legal English course which has been offered once every summer at the University of Edinburgh. It offers a safe space for lawyers to develop their English skills with others from similar professional backgrounds. The course has primarily targeted European commercial lawyers who need to develop their English for use either with clients from other jurisdictions and language backgrounds or colleagues from other law firms. There is strong emphasis on developing language skills for professional legal contexts – meetings, negotiations, giving presentations, advising clients, writing letters and dealing with contracts. Tasks are staged within the course to develop presentation skills – including an oral summary of a legal case report. There are opportunities for extra writing tasks to be completed outside class and support for individualised grammar and legal-vocabulary development. Finding guest speakers from the School of Law and local law firms can be challenging.
