Legal Scholarship Editing and Proofreading Services

An article argues that the doctrine has moved. It cites a Court of Appeal decision, a first-instance judgment from another jurisdiction, an obiter remark, two academic articles and a practitioner text — all in one string, all carrying equal weight in the footnote, and none of them distinguished by what it can actually settle. A judge reading this cannot use it, and a reader cannot tell where the argument becomes the author's.

We edit what legal academics write — doctrinal articles and case analyses, comparative law papers, legal theory and jurisprudence, empirical legal studies, law reform submissions and consultation responses, casebooks and student texts, comments and notes, and theses, monographs and grant applications. Our editors work on the argument and the authority it rests on.

Doctrinal argument depends on the hierarchy of authority, and its failure is a footnote that flattens binding precedent, persuasive authority and commentary into one undifferentiated pile. The strength of a legal claim is the strength of what supports it, precisely stated. We work through these so authorities are identified by what they are and what they bind, since a decision of the highest court, a Court of Appeal decision on a different point, a foreign judgment and a textbook paragraph are four different kinds of support; so the ratio is separated from obiter where the argument turns on it, because a claim resting on a remark made in passing should say so and can still be persuasive; so the level of the court, the jurisdiction and the date are given wherever they affect weight; so the proposition attributed to a case is checked against what the case decided rather than what it is commonly cited for, given that a great deal of law is cited by reputation; so the author's own argument is marked as such and distinguished from the state of the law as it stands; so contrary authority is engaged rather than omitted, as the reader who matters will know it; and so the practical consequence is stated for the person who has to advise on it. Writing like this gets cited in judgments as well as in journals.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including draft articles, submissions and unpublished work. We are editors rather than lawyers, and we offer no legal advice and no view on the correctness of any proposition. What we can do is make the authority behind each step visible.