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Miscellaneous

the (new) legal writer

A collection of resources for lawyers, who write. From Raymond Ward, an appellate lawyer with Adams and Reese LLP in New Orleans.

Post Frequency: 5.3/day

Last Entry: March 26, 2011 at 15:44:07

Point Made, by Ross Guberman

Posted on March 26, 2011
For briefwriters of any level of expertise, I recommend Ross Guberman?s new book, Point Made. Ross offers 50 valuable briefwriting tips. But he doesn?t just tell you what to do: he shows you, through real-life examples taken from briefs written...

Federal plain-language guidelines

Posted on March 05, 2011
The good ladies at Writing Matters have posted a useful, hyperlinked outline of the Federal Plain Language Guidelines. Don?t just read it?bookmark it.

The difference between ?Oh? and ?O?

Posted on March 05, 2011
Five minutes ago, I thought ?O? was an alternative, perhaps poetic spelling of ?Oh.? After reading this post by John McIntyre, explaining the difference between the two words, I don?t think that anymore.

Mark Herrmann names names.

Posted on February 24, 2011
Mark Herrmann (hereinafter ?Herrmann?), not to be confused with the other Mark Herrmann (the Purdue quarterback, hereinafter ?the other Mark Herrmann? or ?OMH,? sometimes also referred to hereinafter as ?the Boilermaker Mark Herrmann? or ?BMH?), but the one who used...

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For appellate lawyers, reversal rates in U.S. courts of appeals

Posted on February 24, 2011
This post isn?t about legal writing, but those of you who are appellate lawyers may find it useful. Earlier today I was asked the reversal rates for the U.S. Fifth Circuit. Those numbers, and many others for all the U.S....

Issue statements: Different strokes for different folks and different situations

Posted on February 19, 2011
There are many ways to write an issue statement. Which one should you use? That depends on the purpose of and the audience for whatever you?re writing. In Issue Statements ? Different Kinds for Different Documents, Wayne Schiess and Elana...

?It is axiomatic that ...? No, scratch that.

Posted on February 15, 2011
I?m reading Stanley Fish?s new book, How to Write a Sentence. It?s good. Stanley takes a structural approach to sentence-writing. It?s like the approach the C. Edward Good takes in his books, except that where Ed approaches structure grammatically, Stanley...

Quotation of the day ? The importance of practice

Posted on February 09, 2011
?What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.? ?Samuel Johnson. (Hat tip to What About Clients/Paris?)

Let it snow. Not.

Posted on February 03, 2011
Words are like snow?something to remember the next time you?re tempted to unleash a blizzard of words.

Contractions ain?t so bad.

Posted on February 02, 2011
The notion that contractions are undignified is relatively recent. So don?t shy away from them just because an apostrophe is involved. Let your writing relax. Maybe as a result, the reader will relax too.

One (1) habit to avoid

Posted on February 02, 2011
Years ago, I heard Mike Fontham riff against writing numbers in both numerals and prose, such as ?fifty-seven (57).? Said Mike, ?Which one can?t they read?? Kendall Gray riffs on the same subject at his blog. So read Kendall?s post....

Brainless writing

Posted on February 02, 2011
Says here that ?[t]here?s a new advance in the effort to write prose without any direct involvement of a human brain.? As a reader of legal writing since 1986, I?d say the legal profession is way ahead of that curve.

The second thing you should do when writing an appellate brief

Posted on February 01, 2011
The first thing you need to do when writing an appellate brief is, of course, to get your hands on the record. Once you?ve done that, the next thing you should do is write the jurisdictional statement for your brief....

For haters of the Bluebook

Posted on January 30, 2011
Over at Slaw.ca, Simon Chester has a nice post entitled Death to Needlessly Prolix Citation Guides, which links to and briefly reviews an article by Judge Richard Posner bemoaning the bloated Bluebook. Simon also links to the original 1926 first...

One space, not two, after each sentence.

Posted on January 25, 2011
I?ve written on this topic many times before (e.g. here), but too many out there either haven?t gotten the message or willfully resist it. So here we go again ... If you are writing in a proportionately spaced font (i.e....

First, you cut.

Posted on January 20, 2011
Why? Roy Jacobsen explains.

25 commandments for writers

Posted on January 19, 2011
Legal writers can learn a lot from journalists about writing. Whether or not you believe that, take a look at Tim Radford?s 25 commandments for journalists, subtitled ?a manifesto for the simple scribe.? If you do any expository or persuasive...

Excuse me, while I kiss this guy

Posted on January 19, 2011
Lifehacker has these commonly misheard expresssions to avoid (or fix) in your writing. (Hat tip @AdviceToWriters.)

For appellate lawyers, a great seminar

Posted on January 18, 2011
I have attended every DRI Appellate Advocacy Seminar since the first one in 1999. So I confidently recommend the next one, to be held March 10-11, 2011 in Orlando, Florida. The faculty includes several appellate judges, in-house counsel, and top-notch...

Bryan Garner coming to your town (maybe)

Posted on January 15, 2011
During the next three months, Bryan Garner will be on tour with a double-feature CLE program: Advanced Legal Writing & Editing in the morning, and Making Your Case (developed with Justice Antonin Scalia) in the afternoon. You can sign up...

Typography for Lawyers ? the book

Posted on January 03, 2011
I just finished reading Matthew Butterick?s new book, Typography for Lawyers. For lawyers and law students, I have two words of advice about this book: buy it. Why? Because every lawyer is a professional writer. So the lawyer?s writing should...

The difference good typography makes

Posted on January 02, 2011
Over at The Appellate Record, Kendall Gray took a typical opinion in typical type style (12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced), and re-did it using principles learn from Matthew Butterick?s new book, Typography for Lawyers. The difference is remarkable...

Refudiate these words in 2011

Posted on January 01, 2011
Every year, the American people look forward to Lake Superior State University?s annual list of banished words, so much so that the list goes viral. So if you want to man up your vocabulary and avoid epic fail, check out...

Goodbye, Caps Lock.

Posted on December 17, 2010
Here?s some good news from the technology front: the good folks at Google who developed the new CR48 notebook computer omitted the Caps Lock key from the keyboard. If this innovation catches on, YOU WON?T EVER HAVE TO READ JUNK...

10 tips for proofreading

Posted on December 04, 2010
Over at Write to Done, Leah McClellan has contributed a guest post on proofreading. In it, she explains the importance of proofreading and offers 10 tips for more effective proofreading.

The Appellate Record?a blog for those ?comforatable with their inner law nerd?

Posted on November 20, 2010
Here?s a blog for appellate lawyers and others who care about good writing: The Appellate Record. Its author, Kendall Gray, strives to provide ?online community and virtual watering hole for appellate lawyers and anyone else who is comfortable with their...

A different approach to drafting wills

Posted on November 20, 2010
Wills may be the most commonly needed form of legal writing?everyone owning property at death needs one. So whether you write wills for clients, or whether the only will you?re involved in writing is your own, you should read Reflections...

Without even looking, ...

Posted on November 17, 2010
... I?ll take a wild guess that this West headnote comes from one of Judge Selya?s opinions: When interpreting one statute by reference to subsequently enacted statute, rationale for later statute cannot automatically be transformed by some thaumaturgical feat of...

So maybe I?m in the 1%?

Posted on November 05, 2010
?As a colleague of mine once put it, ?I never met a man who didn?t think he was a great lover or a lawyer who didn?t think he was a great writer. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they?re deluded.??...

The root causes of bad legal writing

Posted on October 30, 2010
Why is most legal writing so bad? And what can be done about it? Wayne Schiess tackles these questions in Legal Writing Is Not What It Should Be. Some of the causes and proposed solutions are institutional. But one of...

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