Linus Roos

About Linus Roos

Presentation
Linus Roos (formerly Pentikäinen) is Senior Lecturer in Law with a specialization in Legal Rhetoric at the School of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences, Örebro University. He is also a Recognised University Teacher. Linus defended his doctoral dissertation in Law in 2022. His research mainly concerns legal argumentation and plain legal language.

Teaching
Linus teaches both Legal Rhetoric in the Law Programme and core legal subjects such as Procedural Law, Criminal Law, and Jurisprudence.

Recent Publication
Roos, Linus, “Legal Rhetoric in Scandinavia: An Introduction and a Research Overview,” in Lagar och vägar: Juristprogrammets 20-årsjubileum vid Örebro universitet, ed. Jessica Jonsson & Magnus Kristoffersson (Uppsala: Iustus, 2025), pp. 213–235.
The article introduces Legal Rhetoric as a research field and provides an overview of Scandinavian contributions. It discusses the current state and future directions of the field, including how rhetorical perspectives can support efforts toward clearer legal language.

Forthcoming Publications
Spirit through Letter: Legal Rhetoric and the Argumentative Role of Preparatory Works in Swedish Law.
This international anthology contribution (currently being translated into French) explores how the often implicit tension between the “letter” and the “spirit” of the law is balanced through the strong position of legislative preparatory works in Swedish law. It further argues that the legislator’s intention functions as a semi-formal topos that channels purposive arguments within the established Swedish legal methodology.

Ongoing Research Projects and Articles in Progress
The Language of Judgments in Sweden and Finland – Variation and Justice (DOVE)
A cross-disciplinary project in Procedural Law, Legal Rhetoric, and Linguistics that uses discourse analysis to study how Swedish is used in the reasoning of 70 criminal court judgments from seven district courts (three in Sweden and four in Finland, including Åland). The project focuses on linguistic patterns, the court’s positioning toward parties, legal professionals, and the public, as well as differences between Swedish as used in Sweden and in Finland within a pluricentric framework. Conducted in collaboration with researchers from Örebro University, Åbo Akademi University, the University of Helsinki, and the University of Turku, and funded by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.

Towards Clearer Legal Language – Lessons from the Swedish Experience
An English-language article for an international legal audience that outlines the development of the plain legal language movement in Sweden: its emergence, cultural barriers, effective practices in courts and legislative drafting, and current progress and challenges, illustrated through comparative examples. The article concludes that clarity is a legal obligation – a matter of justice and legal certainty rather than style.

Training Practical Skills in Higher Education – A Report from an Ongoing Exploration of Course Design
This text reports from an ongoing exploration of course design and sketches a theoretical framework for developing courses that enable practical skill training in higher education, using Legal Rhetoric as an illustrative example.