ENHANCING PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE OF LAW STUDENTS THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF SOFT SKILLS IN LEGAL ENGLISH INSTRUCTION

Résumé

The growing complexity of contemporary legal practice requires law graduates to possess not only strong subject knowledge and linguistic competence, but also well-developed soft skills such as critical thinking, negotiation, collaboration, and professional communication. In many ESP contexts, however, Legal English instruction remains predominantly terminology-oriented and does not sufficiently address the development of professional competence. This study explores the impact of integrating soft skills into Legal English classes on the professional competence of first-year law students. A mixed-methods quasi-experimental design was implemented over a twelve-week semester with eighty-four students at Tashkent State University of Law. The experimental group participated in simulation-based activities, including moot court role-plays, negotiation tasks, client interviews, and collaborative legal writing, while the control group followed a traditional language-focused curriculum. Data were collected through pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, classroom observation, performance assessment rubrics, and student reflective journals. The findings demonstrate that structured soft skills integration significantly enhances students’ communicative confidence, argumentation ability, teamwork skills, and overall professional readiness. The study argues that Legal English instruction should shift toward a competence-based model in which linguistic development and soft skills training are systematically interconnected.