Legal Writing

The Sound of a Better Value

Posted on January 15, 2010
Consider the following introduction to a law firm’s employment practice: Our Employment Group provides employers with comprehensive legal services pertaining to the employment relationship. That?s a common approach to practice area descriptions, but it’s hardly persuasive...

Today’s Good Advice (to Attorneys who Write)

Posted on January 13, 2010
Before you start writing that client alert, grab a newspaper and a cup of coffee. If you can, get a widely read paper: The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Chicago Tribune. If not, find a paper that carries AP stories. Read a few stories. At least, read the first few paragraphs of a few [...

Why Lawyers Need Editors

Posted on January 07, 2010
Lawyers need editors for this reason: they’re authors. They write client alerts, newsletter articles, and seminar materials published by their firms, and by-lined articles published by others. Some maintain blogs. Lawyers need editors for this reason too: they’re human...

Finally — Today’s Quote

Posted on January 07, 2010
Today’s quote comes from John Gillies, director of practice support at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP: Since lawyers spend a large portion of their time writing, either directly to clients or in publications of some form, clients will necessarily come to a conclusion about a lawyer?s capabilities based on his or her written work...

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Why Law Firms Need Editors

Posted on January 06, 2010
Law firms need editors for this reason: they’re publishers. They publish client alerts and newsletters, seminar materials and by-lined articles authored by their attorneys. They publish web sites and some publish blogs. Now, here’s a good example of what happens when there’s no editor between an attorney/author and his target audience: All of these crimes can carry [...

What (in the World) Did They Do to the Article I Wrote?

Posted on December 31, 2009
You’re an attorney and you just finished writing a client alert for your firm. Now, all that’s left to do is to send your copy to marketing, right? Hardly so! That’s your work and — if your marketing department is any good — the alert you wrote is likely to be seen by potential clients: lots of people...

SEO — Money to Burn

Posted on December 29, 2009
Let’s say you’re a law firm. You have a web site and it has lots of links — hundreds of them — to things your firm has published: client alerts, newsletters, bylined articles, etc. A key reason you publish these things (and provide links to them) is so people (esp...

The Coefficient of Popularity

Posted on December 29, 2009
Some things can be measured, and some can’t. When it comes to law firm marketing activities and their costs, ROI can be measured in some cases, but not in others. At least, that’s my opinion of it. Years ago, when I was writing direct mail pieces, I measured response, and it made sense: there was a direct [...

Why Do Law Firms Need Editors?

Posted on December 27, 2009
Here’s a good example that shows why law firms need editors. Written by “one of the country’s most well-known art lawyers,” it discusses orphan works, copyrighted works whose owners cannot be found: In short what the amendment provides if a user can not find the work?s creator and they tweak the work they have cart blanc [...

On Law Firms Imitating Publishers

Posted on December 22, 2009
Here’s a portion of something published by a law firm. What’s wrong with it? If you work for a publisher, the problem is obvious. If you work for a law firm, the problem is (most likely) a mystery. The problem, in this case, is all-too-common among those who don’t know publishing, and it is this: the lack [...

The Annual Review — Searching for Eksellence

Posted on December 17, 2009
Here’s what I find surprising — a large law firm claims excellence in all it does, but there’s a typo, or a misspelling, or a grammatical or logical error in the first line of type on the home page of the firm’s Web site. And it stays there for quite some time, as if no [...

Go Fish

Posted on December 16, 2009
As I do each day, I’m reviewing the activity log for Set in Style. I’m surprised to find that a two-year-old post got lots of hits yesterday. I wonder why. I review the old post, which is about not wasting readers’ time — it’s good advice for attorneys who tend to use far more words than [...

How to Redact a PDF

Posted on December 11, 2009
The big news is how someone at the Transportation Safety Administration published the entire contents of a confidential security manual (supposedly redacted), and how a blogger spotted the error. Here are instructions from Adobe Systems on how to redact (permanently erase) text and images from a PDF file.

Writing for Readers (Who Lack Law Degrees)

Posted on December 08, 2009
Your car isn’t acting quite right and you need a mechanic. So . . . you describe what’s wrong with the car to two mechanics, and they speculate like so: Mechanic #1: “The polarized input capacitor of the voltage regulator might be allowing too much variation in potential, and that’s causing the negative feedback servo control loop to [...

Dear Attorney — Listen to Your Marketing Director

Posted on December 04, 2009
I’m reviewing a cover letter to a proposal. The 24-page proposal is from a law firm that wants to offer legal services to an insurance company. The 650-word cover letter was drafted by an attorney who worked on the proposal. It’s awful (the cover letter) — two pages of hype that belongs in a brochure...

Well Done

Posted on December 02, 2009
I’m working on an article about whether an attorney should start a blog. Part of it has to do with the ROI of a blog, and I’ve asked a few attorneys with blogs for their comments, and those comments all say this: the ROI of a blog is no quick thing...

Sleazy

Posted on December 01, 2009
It’s time again to raise the issue of law firms that republish the works of others. This time, it’s Finkelstein Newman Ferrara LLP — a small firm that publishes the ever-so-popular New York Real Estate Lawyer’s Blog (which now has an Alexa rank < 550,000)...

Incredible

Posted on November 30, 2009
I was reading this post about Martindale Hubble making strange comments on lawyers’ blogs, and what most caught my attention though was this: When it comes to protecting your reputation, this is one simple rule for lawyers to follow: No one cares as much about your reputation as you do...

Another Quicky

Posted on November 27, 2009
When they?re in a hurry, attorneys will write things (e.g., articles for a seminar on changes in tax laws) like this: Under Internal Revenue Code § 57, there are several tax preferences for individuals listed that are deductible for computing regular taxable income but which are added back when determining alternative minimum taxable income...

Are You Being Plagiarized?

Posted on November 24, 2009
I’ve written a number of posts (here, here, and here) about law firms republishing copyrighted materials without permission. Are others republishing what you wrote without permission? Has someone lifted your copy (from a client alert, perhaps) and republished it without your consent? To find out, try this: copy a line from something you wrote, wrap it in [...

Client Alerts — Appearances Count

Posted on November 17, 2009
If you’re an attorney, then I ask you to think about something you don’t often consider ? how you appear in print. Why? Because it’s important. How you appear in print affects your practice, your ability to attract clients, and what you can charge for the services you provide...

What IP Attorneys Don’t Need

Posted on November 03, 2009
Let’s say you’re the managing partner of your firm’s IP practice group. Here’s what you don’t need, especially if your firm claims to be technologically savvy: Some unscrupulous marketeer pilfers some articles from your firm’s Web site...

Quick Cut ? Your Tax Dollars in Print

Posted on October 29, 2009
Consider the following line from the California Health and Safety Code: Under existing law, a health facility is prohibited from retaliating or discriminating against an employee of a health facility that has presented or initiated a complaint or initiated, participated, or cooperated in an investigation or proceeding of a government entity relating to the care, services, or conditions of the facility...

Quick Cut ? Don?t Waste Readers’ Time

Posted on October 28, 2009
Here’s the original (published by a firm that thinks it doesn’t need an editor): Effective December 1, 2009, it will be unlawful for any motor vehicle operator to text message while driving. Violations of the new law will constitute an ?infraction? punishable by a $100 fine...

Whatever Happened to Winslow Blodgett Taub?

Posted on September 25, 2009
Whatever happened to Winslow and so many others? What’s become of Daniel Norayr Kassabian, Robert Daniel Fram, Jonathan Stewart Larsen, Annette Louise Hurst, and all the IP lawyers that used to work for Heller Ehrman? Are they hiding? ____________ Suppose you want to contact Winslow...

Why Solo Attorneys Need Web Sites

Posted on September 24, 2009
The Wisconsin Law Journal has an interesting article (?Legal blog start-up soars to prominence?) that puts the spotlight on two attorneys: Aaron Street, publisher of Lawyerist Media LLC, and Samuel Glover, Editor-in-Chief of the popular legal blog lawyerist...

Looking Good

Posted on September 22, 2009
A CMO explains CRM to a marketing coordinator. Suppose that producing a Web site or a blog was something like going through boot camp. Think about it! There you are, standing for inspection. Some big, mean-looking guy with a weird accent isn’t far away...

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Posted on September 11, 2009
There are three problems with this statement published by Arnold & Porter: Be the first to identify them, and win this week’s Friday Afternoon Pop Quiz.

Law Firm Uses the News to Attract Attractive Clients

Posted on September 09, 2009
This evening, tens of millions of eyes will be focused on the president as he tells us about health care reform, and tomorrow — if the past is any sort of guide — great big law firms will miss the significant opportunity offered by the president...

Lasting Impressions & Law Firm Seminars

Posted on August 27, 2009
Let’s say you’re an associate, and have been for five or six years. In the past few years, you’ve been so impressive that the head of the employment law practice group wants you to make a presentation at an upcoming seminar. This is a great opportunity...

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