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The guide explains how to answer the client’s questions and advise available legal options, while also memorializing current understanding of the issue. It emphasizes tailoring writing to the client’s background, limiting scope to necessary information, maintaining respect, avoiding insulting or irrelevant assumptions, and selecting an appropriate tone based on relationship and complexity.",{"@graph":63,"@context":118},[64,80,101],{"@type":65,"itemListElement":66},"BreadcrumbList",[67,71,74,77],{"item":68,"name":69,"@type":70,"position":9},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":72,"name":10,"@type":70,"position":73},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/",2,{"item":75,"name":41,"@type":70,"position":76},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/letters/",3,{"item":78,"name":59,"@type":70,"position":79},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/how-to-write-a-client-advice-letter-purpose-audience-scope-and-tone/280379/",4,{"url":78,"name":59,"@type":81,"image":82,"author":87,"headline":59,"publisher":90,"fileFormat":93,"inLanguage":57,"description":61,"dateModified":94,"datePublished":95,"encodingFormat":93,"isAccessibleForFree":96,"interactionStatistic":97},"DigitalDocument",{"url":83,"@type":84,"width":85,"height":86},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/how-to-write-a-client-advice-letter-purpose-audience-scope-and-tone/280379.png","ImageObject",442,249,{"name":88,"@type":89},"Quinn","Person",{"url":68,"name":91,"@type":92},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-27","2026-09-16",true,{"@type":98,"interactionType":99,"userInteractionCount":45},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":100},"ViewAction",{"@type":102,"mainEntity":103},"FAQPage",[104,110,114],{"name":105,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":107},"What are the two main purposes of a client advice letter?","Question",{"text":108,"@type":109},"It answers the client’s questions and advises legal options, and it memorializes the lawyer’s current understanding by conveying analysis and likely outcomes.","Answer",{"name":111,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":112},"How should a lawyer tailor the letter for its audience?",{"text":113,"@type":109},"The letter should be written for the client, using language the client can understand, considering the client’s background and education, and maintaining respect without oversimplifying or assuming facts.",{"name":115,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What scope and tone should a client advice letter have?",{"text":117,"@type":109},"It should be no longer than necessary, focused on information the client needs to decide, and written with a tone appropriate to the relationship with the client and the complexity of the legal issue.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":78,"og:type":120,"og:title":59,"og:site_name":91,"og:description":61},"article",{"robots":122,"canonical":78},"index,follow",{"doc_id":124,"site_id":56},280379,1790009059,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":127},{"doc_id":124,"user_id":128,"nickname":88,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":9,"category_id":40,"category_name":41,"doc_title":59,"doc_description":61,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":45,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":9,"is_downloadable":9,"audit_status":9,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":57,"site_id":56,"html_lang":57,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":61,"update_tm":140,"read_time":76},962075114765,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","HOW TO WRITE A CLIENT ADVICE LETTER*  \n© 2023 The Writing Center at Georgetown University Law Center. All Rights Reserved.  \nA key skill for lawyers and law students is the ability to explain legal issues and provide advice in writing to clients. Client advice letters, which lawyers write to answer the client’s legal question and guide the client ’s decision-making, are the most common way lawyers provide written advice.1 Lawyers write client advice letters on physical paper, in email attachments, and in the body of emails.  \nThe most significant difference between client advice letters and other legal documents is that client advice letters are often written for non-lawyers. This handout focuses on helping you write for this audience. First, it describes client advice letters’ purpose, audience, scope, and tone. Second, it provides the components of client advice letters – introduction, facts, analysis, and conclusion – together with tips and examples for each section.  \nI.  Getting Started  \nLetters are the most stylistically varied type of writing you will do as a lawyer because you must tailor your tone and analysis to your individual audience.2 Therefore, before you sit down to write a client advice letter, it is especially important to consider the letter’s (A) purpose,(B) audience,(C) scope, and (D) tone.  \nA. Purpose  \nClient advice letters serve two purposes. First is to answer the client ’s questions and advise them of their legal options.3 This purpose helps fulfill a lawyer ’s ethical obligation to “explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation.”4 Second is to memorialize your current understanding of the legal issue by conveying your analysis, including the merits ofthe client’s case and the likely outcome.  \n* By Blake W. Cowman.  \n1 HELENE S. SHAPO, MARILYN R. WALTER, & ELIZABETH FAJANS, WRITING AND ANALYSIS IN THE LAW 285 (7th ed. 2018) [hereinafter WRITING AND ANALYSIS IN THE LAW] . See id. for information about other kinds of client communications, such as formal opinion letters.  \n2 WRITING AND ANALYSIS IN THE LAW at 279.  \n3 DIANA R. DONAHOE, THE ROAD TO LEGAL PRACTICE (2023), [https://teachinglaw.com/legalDocuments/Client%2BLetters](https://teachinglaw.com/legalDocuments/Client%2BLetters) [hereinafter DONAHOE].  \n4 MODEL RULES OF PROF'L. CONDUCT R. 1.4 (AM. BAR ASS’N 2020) .  \nB. Audience  \nYour audience is your client. So you must write differently than you would for lawyers or judges. It is critical to write in a way your client can understand. As you write, keep the client’s background and education in mind and always maintain respect for the client.5  \nTailor your letter to your client ’s educational background and legal experience. For example, a letter to the general counsel of a large corporation should look quite different than a letter to a small business owner with no prior experience with lawyers.6 For the general counsel, you can include more detailed analysis, citations, case discussions, etc., than you want to include for the small business owner.7 Lawyers are trained to glean information from case descriptions and citations, but the same items may confuse and overwhelm non-lawyers. Many clients, especially those who are non-lawyers, will assume you know the law – you do not need to prove it to them.8 When in doubt, aim for broader readability. Some strategies for communicating legal ideas to non-lawyers are discussed below in the Components section.  \nAlways be respectful to the client and others in your writing. Do not take the fact that the client is not a lawyer and oversimplify your writing so much that it is insulting to the client. Additionally, do not include assumptions about your client or others. For example, when choosing terms to describe your client, use the language that the client uses to describe themself and be mindful about the terms you use to describe others.9 Misgendering a client or descr","cbCainv8VpZUBSw9","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCainv8VpZUBSw9","pdf",256370,8,"English","# Getting Started\n## Purpose\n## Audience\n## Scope\n## Tone","[{\"question\":\"What are the two main purposes of a client advice letter?\",\"answer\":\"It answers the client’s questions and advises legal options, and it memorializes the lawyer’s current understanding by conveying analysis and likely outcomes.\"},{\"question\":\"How should a lawyer tailor the letter for its audience?\",\"answer\":\"The letter should be written for the client, using language the client can understand, considering the client’s background and education, and maintaining respect without oversimplifying or assuming facts.\"},{\"question\":\"What scope and tone should a client advice letter have?\",\"answer\":\"It should be no longer than necessary, focused on information the client needs to decide, and written with a tone appropriate to the relationship with the client and the complexity of the legal issue.\"}]","How to Write a Client Advice Letter - Purpose, Audience, Scope, and Tone | PDF",1789538341]