Common Assessment Errors

Here is a list of common errors which can be avoided when completing the assessments for the Legal Secretaries Diploma and Foundation Level courses:

• Missing important elements of a letter, including our ref, your ref and the date. You may not be given references within the coursework, however you can either make them up or leave them blank but you need to demonstrate that you know where they are placed.  
• If a letter has an enclosure, ensure you place 'Enc' at the end.
• Punctuation is not required in certain parts of a letter.  For example, you do not need to put a comma at the end of each line of an address, or Dear Sirs or Yours faithfully, etc.  Full stops are also not required within names, for example Mr Smith or Mrs Smith should not be typed Mr. Smith or Mrs. Smith.
• All letters need to have a heading as to what it is regarding where ‘Re:’ is typed.
• Check your paragraph spacing within deeds and letters. Only one clear line should show between paragraphs in letters.  For deeds, such as the Conveyance and Will, which are typed in 1.5 or double line spacing, there is no need to have one clear line and you only need to press return once.
• Consideration should be in words and figures in all deeds: i.e. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS (£150,000).
• All names within deeds should be in capitals, for example, in the Lease, Licence, Conveyance and Will, etc.
• Deeds very rarely have the date typed in.  It is usual for a gap to be left and this will be handwritten in once the parties have executed/signed the same and it is ready to be completed.  Where you see the word 'blank', this means leave a gap sufficiently large enough to write the date in later.