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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

?And/or? ? just plain dumb?

Posted on January 30, 2010
Over at Writing Matters, Leslie O?Flahavan cites five on-line style guides to support the proposition that ?using ?and/or? in a sentence is just plain dumb.? I wouldn?t go so far as to call it ?plain dumb.? I do try to...

Some worthwhile web sightings on legal writing

Posted on January 23, 2010
Here are some recent blog posts worth checking out: At the award-winning In Search of Perfect Client Service, Patrick Lamb explains why writing plainly is, well, good client service. Holden Oliver, managing editor of What About Clients??s Kitzbühel Desk, thinks...

E-mail tips from Judge Lebovits

Posted on January 18, 2010
Unless you?re a troglodyte, e-mail probably constitutes the greatest volume of your professional writing. If you care about getting that part of your legal writing right, then, please consider Judge Gerald Lebovits?s tips in his article, E-Mail Netiquette for Lawyers,...

Fear: The root of bad legal writing.

Posted on December 30, 2009
Jeremy Richey was kind enough to point me to this post at Illinois L@wyer. The post?s author, Jim Covington, quotes Stephen King: ?I?m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing.? I think King?s observation applies to...

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The importance of a good vocabulary ? and how to build yours

Posted on December 26, 2009
Mark Twain once said, ?The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.? The more words you know, the better your chances of coming up with the right one....

How to draft more understandable jury instructions

Posted on December 24, 2009
Jury instructions are too often so poorly written that even the most intelligent juror cannot understand them. That?s a serious problem. So how can we make jury instructions more understandable? Prof. Peter Tiersma offers many concrete suggestions in this article,...

My Christmas newsletter

Posted on December 22, 2009
Here?s something having nothing to do with legal writing: my blog-style Christmas newsletter. Alert readers will note a slip into the first-person singular near the end. My mistake, but I?ve decided to leave it in. If you celebrate Christmas, have...

?The first draft of anything is shit.? ?Ernest Hemingway

Posted on December 18, 2009
At Writing, Clear and Simple, Roy Jacobsen reminds us that the first draft is, well, just a first draft. Roy?s point is to do something Bryan Garner advocates: When writing the first draft, put your judge (your editor or critic)...

Miscellaneous legal-writing web sitings

Posted on December 15, 2009
SPOGG (The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar) collects a list of links to language essays by Seattle lawyer Robert Cumbow. I haven?t had a chance to read all of the essays, but from what little I?ve read so...

Webinars by Bryan Garner

Posted on December 10, 2009
If you're looking for high-quality hours to fill your CLE quota for 2009, then you may be interested in either one of a pair of one-hour webinars offered by Bryan A. Garner: Better Briefwriting in 60 Minutes (Dec. 17) and...

?Even if it?s bold italic ...?

Posted on December 03, 2009
And now, for something completely different?some guys who take their fonts a little too seriously. (Hat tip to First Draft.)

Plain English magazine

Posted on December 03, 2009
The good folks at Plain English Campaign have posted the November 2009 issue of Plain English magazine. Also on line are 10 years? worth of back issues. The second-best part (after the content) is the price: free. So go there,...

?Affect? can be a noun, and ?effect? can be a verb.

Posted on November 24, 2009
It?s easy to confuse the words affect and effect. I?ve seen some tipsters suggest using affect when you need a verb and effect when you need a noun. That will work most of the time. But occasionally, affect is a...

A clinical demonstration in portraying the facts

Posted on November 23, 2009
As advocates, we are called upon to drive home the good facts and soften the bad facts. For a clinical lesson in how to do both, read Ben Opipari?s analysis of subtle bias in a death-penalty article.

Prevision

Posted on November 20, 2009
Writing guru Roy Peter Clark has come up with a great word for the mental work done before putting fingers to keyboard: prevision. It?s the first of three stages in the writing process: prevision, vision, revision. Prevision is ?[w]hat to...

Of headnotes and issue statements

Posted on November 19, 2009
Ernie the Attorney had an interesting post yesterday asking how the headnotes in West digests encourage lawyers to write long-winded sentences. The answer: the headnote authors follow the senseless convention of trying to cram all the pertinent information into one...

Sure, you can split an infinitive, but this is ridiculous.

Posted on October 29, 2009
This blog?s official position on split infinitives is that they?re okay. The Star Trek catch phrase ? ?to boldly go? ? is A-okay with us. But please, please don?t use your freedom from the no-split-infinitives superstition to write a sentence...

Two things wrong with this headline

Posted on October 24, 2009
New Orleans CityBusiness features this headline: N.O. area shed 1,800 jobs over the year. I see two things wrong with this headline. The subject, ?area,? is singular, and should therefore take a singular verb. (The story talks about jobs being...

Great legal-writing advice from a non-lawyer: What are you trying to accomplish?

Posted on October 22, 2009
What Ken Davis said.

Send a message to the bookstores about usage guides

Posted on October 22, 2009
SPOGG (Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar) reports receiving this e-mail from Bryan Garner: I have a favor to ask of you as a loyal reader: In the next few hours or days, would you please go to http://www.amazon.com/...

How to make your summary-judgment motion more effective

Posted on September 30, 2009
In my early years practicing law, I knew lawyers who would file motions for summary judgment not with the idea of winning the motion, but with the goal of ?educating the judge? about the entire case. I doubt that the...

Two great appellate seminars in November

Posted on September 28, 2009
If you?re an appellate lawyer, or if you?re a litigator who does any appreciable amount of appellate work, then listen up. There are two great appellate CLE programs coming up in November. On November 5?6, DRI will hold its eights...

One way to make your bills more palatable to clients

Posted on September 26, 2009
Billing clients may seem a bit off topic for this blog. Then again, there?s no denying that bills are important written communications from lawyers to clients. With that in mind, here?s a tip from Jim McElhaney on how to write...

How to get your cert petition granted

Posted on September 26, 2009
There?s no one article that you can read to transform yourself from a run-of-the-mill briefwriter into a writer of killer cert petitions. But this article by Erin Coe provides some insights from appellate lawyers who have succeeded in that area.

If only his ideas weren?t considered rebellious

Posted on September 20, 2009
The ABA Journal has recognized contract-drafting expert Ken Adams as a ?Legal Rebel,? a lawyer dedicated to remaking the profession. Ken?s mission is to reform the way lawyers draft contracts. He?d like to see useless words, phrases, and clauses eliminated,...

Foreshadowing and the science of persuasion

Posted on September 17, 2009
If your job involves persuading people through the written word, then you should read Something Judicious This Way Comes by Prof. Michael J. Higdon. In this paper, Prof. Higdon explores the use of foreshadowing in narrative, its effect on people?s...

For Louisiana lawyers: How to go to the front of the line

Posted on September 08, 2009
Many courts, especially appellate courts, process cases in numerical order according to docket number. This means that when you take a case there, you take a number and wait your turn. That is the general rule. There are exceptions. In...

Telling the law?s story

Posted on September 05, 2009
All advocates should know that good storytelling is powerfully persuasive. Certainly our clients have stories that we should search for and tell. But what we may not realize is that the law itself has its own stories. And when our...

Collection of resources at Daily Writing Tips

Posted on September 01, 2009
At Daily Writing Tips, Maeve Maddox has assembled a fine collection of free on-line style guides. So now you too can write like someone from, say, the BBC or the National Geographic. Just go there, browse around, and bookmark your...

Some thoughts about ?FYYFF? inspired by Rising Tide 4 (#rt4 for Twitter)

Posted on August 24, 2009
A few days ago, I attended Rising Tide 4, a wonderful conclave of New Orleans bloggers and others interested in the future of our beautiful and complex city. Near the end of the day, the organizers bestowed the Ashley Morris...

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