Drafting of Pleadings and Written Submissions
This domain tests precision and structure under rules and practice directions. In pleadings the question is whether every element of the claim or defence is properly and specifically alleged; in written submissions it is whether the judge can find your answer, your reasons and your authorities within thirty seconds of opening the document.
Pleadings
- Plead material facts, not the evidence that proves them and not the law, save where the law itself is a fact in issue (foreign law, custom).
- Every allegation must be specific enough to be met; do not plead conclusions the opponent cannot answer.
- Plead the legal basis of any implied term, statutory remedy, interest or aggravated damages you seek.
- The prayer for relief must be precise and within the court's jurisdiction.
- Alternative and inconsistent cases are permissible only if clearly labelled as alternatives.
- Know the routes to amendment, further and better particulars, and strike-out for disclosing no reasonable cause of action.
Written submissions
- State the order sought and the answer in the first paragraph, then provide a roadmap.
- Organise issue by issue; for each, give the proposition, the authority with a pinpoint, and the application.
- Meet the strongest counter-argument head-on; silence reads as concession.
- Attach a chronology and list of issues as separate schedules rather than burying dates in prose.
Worked example
Drafting a statement of claim in breach of contract: identify the contract (parties, date, formation route), plead the express terms by quoting them, plead performance or readiness to perform, plead the breach with dates, then plead loss with figures and the causal link. If a term is said to be implied, plead the basis - statute, or the necessity-based implication test - because an unparticularised implied term invites strike-out or a request for particulars. Each step is a separate plea; the facts proving the contract are not the contract itself.
Traps that cost marks
- Pleading evidence instead of material facts.
- Running a new case in submissions that was never pleaded.
- Submissions without an executive answer, forcing the judge to hunt.
- Omitting the legal basis for a remedy, so the relief is refused even on success.
- Contradicting your own pleading without labelling it as an alternative.