How to write a conclusion for an essay-style law essay
State your final opinion about the central argument
The first task in your conclusion is for you to state the opinion you reached about your central argument after all the analysis you did in the main body of your essay. As a reminder, a "central argument" is the key argument you argue in your essay. It is usually starts with something like this: This essay will evaluate the extent to which....
You should not be introducing any new information, such as cases, statute sections or interesting quotes from academics. There is a place for that in the main body of your essay. Your conclusion is purely a regurgitation of the information from the main headings in your essay.
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Provide reasons to support your final opinion
Once you state your opinion about the central argument, it is time to provide a few reasons why you argued that specific opinion. You will have already included plenty of those reasons in the main body of your essay. That’s where the magic happened and where you proved your point to the reader.
But be careful. The reader has already read your arguments, so they don’t want to read through ALL OF THEM again. They only want to get a flavour of the main arguments you made. The trick is to figure out which arguments are the main arguments.
Length of your essay-style law essay conclusion
Here, there is an easy rule of thumb you can follow. Your law essay probably has around 2-4 headings in between the Introduction and the Conclusion sections. Depending on the length of your essay, this part of your conclusion should include 1-3 sentences summarising each of those headings.
So, if your essay is pretty short - let’s say up to 1,500 words - and has three headings, you should include in your conclusion one sentence restating the central argument and one sentence summarising each heading in your essay. Simple, right? Now let’s look at how to write conclusions for problem-style questions.
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How to write a conclusion for a problem-style law essay
Acknowledge the legal issues
The writing of a conclusion for a legal problem-style question is actually very simple. Unlike with an essay-style question, there usually isn’t one specific central argument that you are arguing throughout the essay, so you don’t need to restate it in the conclusion.
What you should do instead in the first sentence of your conclusion is acknowledge the legal issues that your essay dealt with. For example, you could say: This essay evaluated whether….
It’s as simple as that!
Restate the conclusion you reached in each heading
The next step is equally straightforward. All you have to do is restate the conclusion you reached at the end of each heading in the main body of your essay in relation to the legal issue(s) that you discussed there. If you only addressed one legal issue per heading, this part is really about repeating again how you solved that legal issue.
If you discussed more than one legal issue in your heading, then you should briefly mention the conclusion that you reached in relation to ALL legal issues. This needs to be done for every heading.
For example, think about:
- What advice did you provide to the person about their legal issue?
- Are they likely to be convicted of a particular crime?
- Is it likely that there was a breach of contract?
- Is it likely that the person committed negligence?
Length of your problem-style law essay conclusion
Depending on the length of your essay, you should use between 1 and 6 sentences for your law essay conclusion. For example, with a short essay of 1,500 words with 3 headings your conclusion is likely to have one short sentence acknowledging the legal issues analysed in the essay and 3 short sentences discussing the conclusions reached in relation to each legal issue. Easy, right?
