How to Become a Legal Content Writer
Have you ever considered becoming a legal content writer? If you’re trying to decide on your niche and find law-related topics interesting, legal content writing could be your perfect fit.
In this post, we’ll answer three key questions:
- What is legal content writing?
- What does a legal content writer do?
- What does it take to become a legal content writer?
Keep reading to learn more about this varied content writing niche.
What Is Legal Content Writing?
As a new writer, you might be tempted to put pen to paper without a real plan to help you succeed. However, taking the time to find your niche as a writer has lots of benefits. Identifying a specific client base will allow you to tailor your marketing strategy, and ultimately charge higher rates. Legal content writing is just one of many exciting, profitable niches you could explore.
Before we start on what legal content writing is and what it’s not, let’s get one thing clear – it’s not writing scripts for The Good Wife or Suits! That’s scriptwriting for TV drama, and that’s a whole different ball game. So, if legal content writing isn’t the glamorous world of legal drama scripts, what is it?
We’re talking about a type of technical writing used within the legal sector. There are many different types of legal writers. Some work directly with legal professionals – lawyers, barristers, advocates, judges, legislators, etcetera – to research, draft, and edit official legal documents. For example, they might produce contracts, reports, or legal memoranda. Others will create marketing content for law firms, such as website copy, blog posts, press releases, or white papers. Legal content writers can also contribute to journals, magazines, and news reports about the legal industry.
As you can see, there is a huge amount of variety within this niche. Something all legal writing has in common, though, is that it always informs, educates, or persuades.
What Does a Legal Content Writer Do?
The exact responsibilities of a legal content writer will vary depending on their role. Generally speaking, though, a legal content writer will:
- Conduct research into legal topics, laws, regulations, and legal precedents.
- Analyze legal problems or issues.
- Collaborate with legal experts.
- Explain or summarize complex topics in a clear, easy-to-understand way.
- Outline, draft, and edit written content.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the specific roles legal content writers occupy, and what they do.
Legal Analysts
Legal analysts often act as legal assistants, analyzing cases and legislation, sourcing data, and writing research. They may draft contracts, legal memoranda, wills, and other legally binding documents.
Brief Writers
Brief writing is a highly technical role. It involves creating documents that summarize details of legal cases, relevant arguments, statutes, and case law. Legal briefs are written for law firms, judges, and clients. Here’s one law firm’s guide to writing a legal brief. It is, itself, a piece of legal content writing.
Feature Writers
Feature writers contribute to legal journals and magazines, specialist print media, and online legal sources. The content often centers around news stories or high-profile court cases, industry trends, and information or advice for legal professionals. Here’s an example from Lawyer Monthly on the impact of email marketing on legal practices.
Legal Correspondents
Legal correspondents are often found in public galleries of courtrooms reporting on cases being tried, like this one from the BBC legal correspondent, Daniel Casciani, detailing Prince Harry’s case against members of the British media. They tend to be specialist broadcast journalists, contributing to news and current affairs shows on television, radio, and related websites.
Corporate Writers
Some legal writers specialize in corporate communications, acting as a channel between major law firms, lawyers, and the public. Their content production tends to include white papers, brochures of services, educational material, press releases (such as this one from Chicago lawyers, Kirkland), annual reports, and other forms of marketing copy.
Website Content Writers
This type of legal content writer produces web copy for law firms’ websites, and other online sources of legal information (such as professional bodies). This page from the Law Society in the UK is part of their legal content for lawyers. These websites often contain a blog, allowing legal content writers to write more informally, while still educating users.
How to Become a Legal Content Writer
The steps you need to take to become a legal content writer will vary depending on the type of content writing you want to do. Whatever type you choose, you’ll need to be comfortable with legal terminology and have (or be able to build) an in-depth knowledge of specific areas of the law. You’ll likely need a legal qualification for some of the more technical roles. Or, at the very least, some legal education or training.
Don’t despair if you don’t have any specialist qualifications. If you gain experience and build a portfolio of work, you can still find a route into legal content writing. Next, we’ll look at the skills you need to become a legal content writer and some of the practical steps you can take to start your journey.
Develop the Right Skills
Hard Skills
Let’s start with the obvious – building your writing skills. Several writing skills are essential whatever your niche. These include being able to:
- Write clear, engaging content.
- Tailor your writing for different audiences.
- Conduct effective research.
- Follow style guidelines.
- Understand and adapt to brand voice.
- Apply basic search engine optimization principles.
- Use tools such as word-processing software.
- Proofread and edit your work.
To create high-quality legal content, you’ll need some knowledge of the legal industry and legal vocabulary. You’re likely to come across words that you won’t find used elsewhere. Latin terms are common, as are loan words adopted from other languages.
If you work on more technical legal writing, you’ll also need to be familiar withcommon formats for legal documents, general legal style, and popular legal style guides. For example, the Blue Book in the USA or OSCOLA in the UK.
Soft Skills
There are also several soft skills that a legal content writer – much like any freelancer – needs to be successful. You’ll need:
- Great attention to detail.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills to communicate with clients.
- The ability to work independently and manage your time effectively.
- Organization skills to juggle multiple projects simultaneously.
- Trustworthiness (you may have to handle confidential information).
Check out our blog post, 10 Essential Soft Skills for Your Freelance Resume, for more on building your soft skills.
Identify Your Niche
As you’ve probably gathered by now, there are lots of different types of legal content writing. Choosing a specific niche within legal writing can make it easier to identify a target client market and develop your marketing strategy. Plus, specialists tend to be able to command higher rates.
We’d recommend looking at a wide range of sources – law firms’ websites, legal magazines, specialist articles in newspapers, court reports – to get a feel for different types of legal content. See what best suits your interests, knowledge, and style. You could specialize in a type of legal writing (e.g., blog and article writing), or a particular subject area (e.g., environmental law).
Consider Your Qualifications
The qualifications you need will depend on your chosen niche. If you want to work in a technically demanding area (for instance, as a legal analyst or brief writer) you will likely need some legal education or training. Some clients may expect you to have a law degree or work experience in a legal environment (e.g., as a paralegal). If you want to work in a less technical area (such as feature writing) you probably won’t need any specific qualifications or experience – although in-depth knowledge of the legal industry is still crucial.
Build Your Portfolio
A freelance writing portfolio contains samples of your work that showcase your writing skills and subject-area expertise. Having an up-to-date portfolio makes it much easier to pitch to, and impress, prospective clients. To build your portfolio as a new legal writer, you could:
- Start a blog discussing legal topics.
- Create sample content (especially for technical legal writing niches).
- Write guest posts for legal blogs, websites, or other publications.
- Cold pitch publications with on-spec pieces.
- Offer pro bono (voluntary) writing services to legal advice charities and other non-profit organizations.
Here are some examples of portfolios from real legal writers:
You can find more tips on building your freelance writing portfolio in our blog post: How to Build a Freelance Writing Portfolio That Wins Clients.
Becoming A Freelance Writer
Are you feeling inspired to become a legal content writer? Taking a course is a great way to brush up on your writing skills or kick-start a brand-new career. Our course, Becoming A Freelance Writer, covers all you need to learn to become a great content writer!
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