Are there 4 appeals or four appeals? When do you use [sic] if your quote contains an error? Should you write “shall” instead of “will?” The answers to these, and many other legal writers’ questions, can be found in the Canadian Guide to Legal Style, the first reference guide in Canada for legal writers, authored by the editorial board of the Queen’s Law Journal (QLJ).

The Style Guide was originally created in 2012 as an internal document for QLJ editors to ensure consistency in grammar and writing style. The board decided to publish the guide with Carswell to address the lack of a publication geared towards writing style necessary for the Canadian and legal contexts.

Over the next two years, they conducted research and compiled contents for their new publication. After examining best practices from other guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style, the authors tailored the rules to what they believed to be the best fit for legal writing in Canada. And as editors of the Queen’s Law Journal, they are experts in the field, having seen and reviewed hundreds of legal essays and papers.

The authors hope that using the guide will help ensure clarity, in addition to increasing the consistency and speed of legal writing. Writers should save time as they are able to quickly search and find answers to their stylistic questions in the relevant context.

The Style Guide, published in September 2014, is designed to be used by all Canadian legal writers, including academics, practitioners and students.

All Queen’s Law students are now trained to use the Style Guide. It has helped students with their legal writing by having them consider matters of style early on and providing them with the tools to make their law school work the best it can be. The authors hope that this gives students a leg up in their academic and professional careers by helping them write clearly, efficiently and consistently.

For those of you who are wondering about the answers to the questions at the beginning of this article, they are found at pages 8, 26, and 30 of the Canadian Guide to Legal Style. (In short, four, when the mistake changes the meaning of the quote and use “will.” There are always exceptions, but don’t worry, those are also covered in the Style Guide.)

The Canadian Guide to Legal Style is dedicated to the memory of Professor Bernie Adell, a long-time faculty advisor to the Queen’s Law Journal and former Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal, who passed away in 2014. The inscription reads: “In memory of Professor Bernard Adell, our teacher, our mentor and our first guide to legal style.”

To order a copy of the Style Guide, visit the Thomson Reuters website.