Abstract
Essentially, legal writing is what lawyers do for a living. Lawyers spend their daily life writing
different types of legal documents. Writing skills are therefore fundamental to success in the
legal profession. However, until the introduction of the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic
Standards (CCMAS) in undergraduate degree programmes by the Nigerian Universities
Commission, legal writing was not given prominence in the legal education curriculum. With
the introduction of English for Legal Writing as a core course in the legal education curriculum
for undergraduate degree programmes in Nigerian universities, there is need for standard
teaching and learning material on legal writing for both undergraduate and postgraduate
programmes. The aim of this paper is to examine the major stages and fundamental skills in
legal writing. It examines the writing process and the fundamental skills required to perform
each step in the legal writing process.