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"Making Your Case": The Gift for a Lawyer You Love

By Eric L. Lipman

This past weekend I had the occasion to fly home to Minnesota from the East Coast, by way of a discount airline carrier. With this particular carrier, comparatively low fares were combined with a bewilderingly long layover in Atlanta before passengers and crew could depart for the prairie.

Thankfully, however, someone who loves me sent me on this trip with a copy of Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner?s new book: Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. My layover flew by in an instant.

This is a profoundly useful book ? and my great wish was that I could have had such a volume when I was starting out in the practice of law two decades ago.

The book is useful because the authors practice precisely what they preach to every other lawyer: It is crispy written, with vivid language that moves directly to the points the two hope to make.

Moreover, the recommendations that the authors make on style and tone for professional advocacy ring very true. Early on in my career, I learned some of these same lessons the hard way ? by doing the opposite and failing to persuade the tribunal.

For the junior lawyer who is just starting out on his or her career, the book?s recommendations could represent an end run around 10 years or more of searing education in the School of Hard Knocks. Indeed, for every professional who cares about advocacy, Making Your Case is a volume that is worth reading and studying closely.

Mindful that some readers of these pages would rather eat nails than remit a dime in royalties to Justice Scalia, I recommending that these readers do themselves a favor and borrow the book from their favorite library.

Or ask to borrow my copy. Although not for long?.. This is a book that is worth reading again and again.

Full post as published by Within the Scope on August 15, 2008 (boomark / email).