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Legal-writing tips

  • July 6, 2011 | Practice News
    Belt and suspenders
    Do you use three words when one would do in legal drafting? Do you draft ordered, adjudged, and decreed instead of just ordered? When you order black coffee, do you order it  black, utterly black, without cream, without sugar? (This is Garry Trudeau's cartoon parody of author David Halberstam's writing style.) You may consider deleting what Professor Joseph Kimble refers to as doublets and triplets. Do the extra words add anything? If not, use the most accurate term and delete the rest.
  • June 29, 2011 | Practice News
    Legal writing classic
    I had a doctor's appointment this morning and brought along an old friend for companionship, Plain English for Lawyers (5th ed. 2005) by Richard C. Wydick. It's about 104 pages of advice that is as helpful today as the first time I read it. I would analogize it as the Strunk and White for lawyers. It's now on my list to re-read once a year. I had forgotten how good this book was.
  • May 21, 2011 | Practice News
    Briefs too long
    It's the one thing all of the Supreme Court justices agree on -- briefs are too long. Bryan A. Garner has published the transcripts of his interviews with eight of the nine justices (Justice Souter did not participate). Garner has put the videos of the interviews on his website for several years as a public service. This New York Times article by Adam Liptak is a nice summary of some the justices' thoughts on legal writing.
  • April 3, 2011 | Practice News
    Legal Writing Checklist
    I ran across the idea of a legal writing checklist at  Legal Writing Prof Blog. I decided to draft one of my own just for laughs and chuckles, which is as follows. (1) Scan through the entire document. Is it pleasing to the eye? Or is it intimidating to the reader? Can the reader understand what your point is by the document’s organization alone? (2) What is it that you were trying to say in one sentence or paragraph? Did you say it and say it early? (3) Read it aloud. Does it flow or is it clunky? (4) Do you drop your reader anywhere by failing to transition from each sentence and paragraph to the next? (5) Does each word, sentence, and paragraph do real work? If not, can you condense or delete a word, sentence, or paragraph? (6) Check the readability statistics for the percent of active/passive sentences and sentence length. Shoot for no more than 15-20% passive voice and average sentence length of 20 words per sentence. (7) Ask somebody else to review it. Ask the reviewer to find three ways to improve it. (Hat tip to Bryan Garner)
  • January 20, 2011 | Practice News
    Spacing between sentences
    A legal-writing blog that I follow recommended Matthew Butterick's Typography for Lawyers. (Ray Ward's blog is called the (new) legal writer.) One of the publishing conventions that lawyers don't follow is to put one space between sentences. Every magazine that you read and all the authorities recommend using only one space instead of two. Our habit of putting two spaces after a sentence is a dated typewriter practice that creates rivers of of white space when using a computer. Compare some of your work with one space and see if you can tell the difference.
  • January 2, 2011 | Practice News
    Banished words from 2011!
    What started at a New Year's Day party on Jan. 1, 1976 has become an institution--the list of banished words for the coming year from Lake Superior State University. You may find the list and background here. (Hat tip to Ray Ward of the (new) legal writer.)
  • September 12, 2010 | Practice News
    Reading your prose aloud
    Having trouble with a sentence or paragraph? Read it aloud. I have read--and can't find the source right now--that every professional writer does this. And are not lawyers  professional writers? If your prose feels clunky or awkward, your ear will tell you and often suggest a fix as well. Our most famous Illinois lawyer did this as a matter of course. Lincoln loved to read aloud as soon as he learned how to read. “I can always tell more about a thing after I’ve heard it read aloud, and know how it sounds.” (The Eloquent President, by Ronald C. White, Jr.) Writer Jonathan Franzen was profiled in piece in the August 23rd issue of Time. Lev Grossman noted that Franzen is "often hoarse by the end of the day because he performs his dialogue out loud as he writes it. (This may account for its strikingly naturalistic quality.)" I got an old copy of Barbara Tuchman's Practicing History Selected Essays off the shelf to take to the used book sale bin at Lincoln Library. As I was flipping through the pages, I noted that I had highlighted these sentences by Tuchman years ago: "After seven years' apprenticeship in journalism, I discovered than an essential element for good writing is a good ear. One must listen to the sound of one's own prose. This, I think, is one of the failings of much American writing. Too many writers do not listen to the sound of their own words." (Page 16) I can't say that I read everything aloud, but if it is important or I'm having trouble with a chunk of text, I do. And it works. Try it.
  • August 30, 2010 | Practice News
    Clarity, clarity, clarity
    Several of the jurors in the Blagojevich trial were interviewed by Chicago Tribune reporters Bob Secter and Stacy St. Clair in last week's Tribune. The title of the piece says it all: "Blagojevich jury's advice: Keep it simple. Panel says prosecution's case, judge's jury instructions were too complicated." I'm not taking a poke at the prosecution or judge here. I'm sure that this was a hard case to organize and present, and I couldn't have done any better. But the article does a nice job of reminding us that as advocates  we're not going to persuade anybody of anything unless the information is organized in such a way that the reader or listener can easily grasp it.
  • August 15, 2010 | Practice News
    Arkansas judges surveyed on legal writing
    Rodney P. Moore has written a nice article in this summer's issue of the Arkansas Lawyer summarizing the results of his survey of  Arkansas judges on legal writing. Although it is not online yet, I assume it will be soon. Judges are the primary readers of our work, so it may be productive to review Mr. Moore's summary of his survey.
    1. Too long, too long, too long. "More is less."
    2. "Get to the point and stay there."
    3. "Introductions and substantive headings are helpful."  This helps judges get their arms around the issues.
    4. No vitriol. To paraphrase Justice Ginsburg in her Lawprose interview, if a lawyer is a stinker, the judges will get that. Just don't go there.
    5. "Circuit judges like bullet points." (As I'm doing here.)
    6. "Don't just cite--explain."
    7. "Follow the rules."
    8. Judges like plain English. Again, more is less. Does that adjective or adverb add anything?
    9. Proofread. (Hint, read out loud. I once sent out a document opining on  "Pubic Act 93-242." Spelled correctly, yes?)
    10. "Organize your writing." Again, this helps readers get their arms around what you're saying.
    Mr. Moore's article is worth reading once it is online.
  • August 9, 2010 | Practice News
    Complaints from past centuries about legal writing
    I just finished reading The Plain English Guide by Martin Cutts this weekend. Good little book. A couple of his passages jumped out at me quoting complaints about legal writing from the 15th and 19th centuries. I thought they would be worth sharing.
    • "In 1550, after only three years on the throne of England, Edward VI had become so exasperated with the law that he remarked: 'I would wish that the superfluous and tedious statutes were made more plain and short, to the intent that men might better understand them.'"
    • "'Excrementitious garbage' was how Jeremy Bentham described legal English in the nineteenth century."
    Good to know that we've been consistent over the centuries.