You should begin taking the final steps in any law school assessment at least two days before the assessment is due. This is because small things such as referencing and ensuring that the essay is compliant with AGLC formatting can often take longer than you would think. Failure to use correct formatting and referencing will lose you marks unnecessarily. Most people have better things to do than stay in the student study area until 4am the night before an essay is due trying to ensure that it is AGLC compliant, such as sleeping.This can easily be avoided if you start this process early. You may want to begin more than two days in advance for essays longer than 3000 words.

Luckily, the Legal Academic Skills Centre has developed a checklist that you can use to ensure that you don’t miss anything – the checklist is available here.

You may also want to read Chapter 6 of the Guide to Academic Success, which deals with writing for assessment.