Class notes
Letter of Demand
- Course
- Clinical Law
- Institution
- University Of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)
Preparing to write a letter of demand for practicing lawyers.
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Letter writingWe write for many purposes but the bulk of the lawyer’s writing work is writing to inform
and writing to persuade.
Whatever the kind of writing you are doing and whether your goal is to inform or to
persuade the fundamental skill you have to develop is to state what you mean when you
write.
The ability to express yourself clearly and concisely in writing is one of the most important
and neglected of all communication skills. Writing after all is merely the expression of your
thoughts on paper. The reason most people have a problem with expressing themselves on
paper is that when writing they have to be far more disciplined than when speaking. When
articulating thoughts orally, people are not forced to economise or choose words that
express exactly what they want to say. They know they can keep talking to clarify anything
that may be unclear and that the person to whom they are speaking will ask questions if
something is not understood.
Your watchword must always be to state what you mean. If you have written a sentence
reread it and ask yourself if it reflects exactly what you want to say. If not, rewrite it until
does. Don’t be satisfied that the reader is bound to get the gist of it.
Six rules to apply in order to state what you mean in writing
1. Use the shortest meaningful word you can.
2. Avoid using unnecessary phrases or clauses.
3. Use short sentences (a sentence is a group of words in sequence that conveys
information).
4. Deal with only one issue per paragraph (a paragraph is a sentence or collection of
sentences dealing with one issue or topic).
5. Know how to use punctuation marks.
6. Consider the physical presentation of your writing.
Preparing to write a letter of demand
Legal letters need to focus their attention on two levels:-
Planning and structuring what to write overall; and
Choosing and arranging the order of words at a detailed level.
The role of letters of demand in pre-action procedure
1. To make a claim that is legally enforceable – claimants should write to their potential
defendants giving details of their claims before launching into any litigation. The
letters must be based on legal principles appropriate to the nature of the claims they
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