Legal Writing

Lawyers & Lists

Posted on August 16, 2010
Consider the beginning of this press release published by a law firm: EpsteinBeckerGreen Ranked Among Top Firms for Diversity by MultiCultural Law Magazine 7/22/2010 NEW YORK (July 22, 2010) ? National law firm EpsteinBeckerGreen is pleased to announce that the Firm has been ranked among the leading law firms for diversity by MultiCultural Law magazine...

Managing Partner = Managing Editor?

Posted on August 16, 2010
You’re the managing partner of a law firm, and you’re a lawyer, not a publisher. Oh . . . Just a minute . . . You are a publisher! Your firm publishes your firm’s web site, right? Since you’re the firm’s managing partner, you’re the firm’s publisher as well, right? Wrong? Well ...

Starting Strong & Lasting Long — Vol. 2

Posted on August 10, 2010
California Supreme Court To Decide Interplay Between Severability-of-Interests Clause And Intentional Acts Exclusion by Patrick McKinney Can an insurance company deny coverage to a homeowner who did nothing intentional because another insured under the policy committed a crime or intentional tort? The first line of this article suffers from a problem that plagues us all [...

Typesetting for Attorneys

Posted on August 03, 2010
You’re an attorney, not a typesetter. You’re concerned with the wording of agreements, briefs, or contracts, not their appearance. But you should be concerned, and that’s because it matters, just as good grammar does. Let me say it again — the first impression someone has of what you wrote isn’t anything you’ve written; it’s the [...

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Starting Strong & Lasting Long

Posted on July 29, 2010
Ask any good writing instructor what’s important, and you’re likely to hear about introductions, and how critical they are to attracting readers. That applies to blog posts published by law firms seeking clients. Consider the intro to this blog post: Insurance Coverage for Food Contamination Recall by Karen Kimmey Recalls of food believed to be [...

Some Lawyers — Unbelievable Sometimes

Posted on July 27, 2010
I find this mildly unbelievable. If I didn’t know how some lawyers can act sometimes, I suppose I’d find it regular unbelievable. I mark up a disclaimer, the first line of which is a run-on: This Blog/Web Site (“Blog”) does not provide specific legal advice, it is for educational purposes only...

Attorneys Advertising Bad Grammar and Faulty Logic

Posted on July 27, 2010
I’m marking up a disclaimer for an attorney’s blog. The first line is a run-on: This Blog/Web Site (“Blog”) does not provide specific legal advice, it is for educational purposes only. I mark it up like so: This blog does not provide specific legal advice...

Regular Maintenance for Law Firm Web Sites

Posted on July 26, 2010
If you’re responsible for the content at your firm’s web site, take my advice — do regular maintenance on it, like it was a car that needed its oil checked every so often. A web site — I mean a site with lots and lots of content — is the sort of appliance that needs [...

Law Firm Web Sites, SEO, Reprint Rights, Acrobat, and Photocopiers

Posted on July 23, 2010
I’m doing some research for an article I’m writing when I find this article (“Lawyers, Laptops, and the Border” published by the Texas Bar Journal) republished by a law firm (the firm of the author of the article). The first page looks great, but there’s something strange about the second page — the type looks [...

A Small Contribution on an Adverbial Particle

Posted on July 19, 2010
If you’re an attorney — especially one who cares for the finer points of English — then you should (in my opinion) subscribe to Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day. (Click here.) If you write to persuade and strive to improve, it’s like having a writer’s little treasure chest...

Lewis Carroll and the Virginia Bar Association

Posted on July 16, 2010
I found this weirdly worded disclaimer at a law firm’s web site just the other day: THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN OUR WEB SITE DESCRIBES LEGAL MATTERS HANDLED IN THE PAST BY OUR ATTORNEYS. OF COURSE, THE RESULTS WE HAVE ACHIEVED DEPEND UPON A VARIETY OF FACTORS UNIQUE TO EACH MATTER...

Richard J. Wegener Needs an Editor

Posted on July 15, 2010
Richard J. Wegener, an attorney with Fredrikson & Byron and “a member of the prestigious Advisory Board to the Bureau of National Affairs? Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report,” is like most attorneys — when it comes to writing client alerts and such, he needs an editor...

Quite a Claim

Posted on July 14, 2010
Consider this intro to the law firm of McAfee & Taft: Welcome Since our inception in 1952, McAfee & Taft has distinguished itself by being an industry leader in developing innovative legal solutions and providing aggressive representation for businesses and individuals alike...

Help for Obese Attorneys — Less Is More

Posted on July 13, 2010
Formality ? it’s honored by so many legal writing instructors and senior partners, and detested by people (e.g., judges and shoppers) who need to read what attorneys write. Verbosity is much like formality. It’s easy to conquer. Consider the intro to this article (by Thomas L...

Electronic Business Cards for Law Firms

Posted on July 06, 2010
You join a new law firm, and a few days later, they arrive: your brand new business cards. You open the box they came in, withdraw one card, and study it. And then you discover an error! A mild case of excitement becomes a small disappointment. This is an error that MUST BE FIXED! You [...

Are You Being Followed?

Posted on July 01, 2010
“I used to be paranoid. Now I’m sure they’re following me.” ______ When it comes to marketing, a following is something to achieve, not avoid. And when it comes to followers, the more the merrier. How many followers do you have? How can you tell? If you’re on LinkedIn (and — if you provide legal [...

Why Wegener?

Posted on June 30, 2010
So I get this unexpected phone call, and the voice that inspired it starts giving me grief about yesterday’s post. “What’s your problem with Mr. Wegener?” To my ear, that’s like asking if Antonin Scalia has a problem with John Paul Stevens because he criticizes Stevens lack of understanding of the law in McDonald v...

Richard J. Wegner Needs an Editor

Posted on June 29, 2010
Richard J. Wegner is like most attorneys — he could use a skilled and experienced editor. Actually, he needs an attorney more than most. Let me show you what I mean. A recent article by Wegner (?Change You Should Believe In??) begins with the following statement: “Many tenants of antitrust law have remained constant throughout [...

Hot Coffee & BP — Law Firms Ignoring Copyrights — Accidents Waiting to Happen

Posted on June 21, 2010
Like cats to mice in motion, tragedies, catastrophes, and oddities grab our attention. And they make us think, at least for as long as it takes a cat to realize, “that wasn’t a mouse; that was a just a maple leaf dancing to the breeze.” Someone sent me a link to this striking video that [...

A Legal Writing Consultant Offers Attorneys Advice

Posted on June 15, 2010
You might say that Marilyn Bush LeLeiko has lots of experience as a legal writing consultant: she?s been at it since 1987, and she?s helped attorneys at more than half of the top 100 AmLaw firms improve their legal writing skills. And you might say she knows how to satisfy clients, else she could not have [...

Why Attorneys Need Editors

Posted on June 10, 2010
Consider this statement from a draft of an article authored by an attorney: ?Business associates? are individuals or entities that provide services for covered entities needing access to protected health information. What we have here is an example of the misplaced modifier...

Whatley Watch II

Posted on June 08, 2010
It’s just great to see that the firm of McAfee & Taft is following my advice. It’s just too bad they don’t have the wherewithal to pay for it. Oh well . . . what the heck. Sometimes I do things for the fun of it. I began this discussion (here) by noting that Nathan Whatley either [...

Wake Up Whatley

Posted on June 02, 2010
It’s been a bit of time since we last spoke of Whatley and his lack of attention to detail, which is beginning to seem to be persistent. Remember: when you write something, be it a client alert or a blog post or something decidedly monstrous, look at it when it’s published...

Law Firms Violating Copyrights

Posted on June 02, 2010
Consider this statement about copyright: A copyright provides the author of an original work the rights to prohibit others from reproducing (copying), adapting (making a derivative work), distributing, performing, and displaying the work. That?s quite a stretch (suggesting people need to get permission from a composer before they sing his song) and not entirely accurate (the holder [...

Quote of the Day

Posted on May 27, 2010
Today’s quote comes from an article titled “Why Is Business Writing So Awful?” The article was written by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm, and co-author of Rework, a book that has earned considerable praise...

Friday Morning Quickie

Posted on May 21, 2010
One of the things I do is respond to emergencies. A newsletter has to go to the printer, or a proposal has to be submitted by the end of the day, and I’m called in to drop everything else to make sure the author or the publisher or both look their best...

Sorry, Whatley, But You Should Have Looked

Posted on May 20, 2010
You’re in-house counsel, and you’re looking for information about hiring summer interns. That’s what your company is planning on doing, and management wants your advice before it moves forward. You could take a crash course on employment law (your client is a high-tech firm, and your specialty is IP law), or you could look for someone [...

Audience Analysis — Part I

Posted on May 18, 2010
Why do people attend seminars hosted by law firms? To learn. What is the purpose of these seminars? To teach. ______ I thought about that recently. I was attending a seminar on employment law, and I was wondering why the attorneys were doing what they were doing — for the first hour of the seminar, they were breezing through cases related [...

Trimming Bloated Copy ? Lawyers with Not Much to Do

Posted on May 14, 2010
Many attorneys think formal (old fashioned, fluffy, and bloated) copy is more impressive than less formal copy. Well they’re wrong, and they’ve been wrong for some time. Consider this introduction to a firm’s recruiting materials: For more than 55 years, Acme Legal, LLP has successfully recruited some of the best and brightest legal minds to anticipate and serve [...

Better Grammar for Lawyers: Part Three

Posted on May 13, 2010
No, this isn’t a series of lessons I’m running ? it’s a webinar Bryan Garner is running tomorrow. The editor in chief of Black?s Law Dictionary, and a highly regarded legal writing expert, Garner regularly hosts these seminars to help attorneys develop their writing skills: The Winning Brief Advanced Legal Writing & Editing Advanced Legal Drafting The Winning Oral Argument Advanced [...

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