Aristotle’s triad for good writing—subject, purpose, audience—is no relic of antiquity. It remains the governing geometry of persuasive legal prose. A sound brief doesn’t hide behind citations or curlicues of style. It moves with clarity because its author knows what to say, why to say it, and to whom. Many advocates falter not from want of intellect but from want of coherence. They plead to the law as if it had ears, rather than to the living, thinking judge who must be persuaded to act.
The subject matter steadies the advocate’s hand. It demands fidelity to record and rule—the fixed coordinates of credible argument. When the facts are thin or the law inhospitable, discipline becomes not optional but essential. Mastery of the subject prevents drift into ornament and guards against filling silence with sound. It is the lawyer’s first defense against rhetorical self‑regard masquerading as eloquence.
Purpose gives argument its momentum. To persuade, to clarify, to guide—each aim reshapes tone, structure, and emphasis. You write one way to seek reversal and another to defend a judgment; one stance calls for the thrust of a rapier, the other for the guard of a shield. Purpose rightly understood transforms exposition into persuasion and craft into conviction.
And then there is the audience—the most neglected of the three and the most relentless in its judgment. A fine brief written for the wrong ear is effort misplaced. Know your reader’s patience, the clerk’s time, the opposing counsel’s weakness. Tune rhythm and authority to the temperament of those who will read and decide. When subject, purpose, and audience align, legal prose achieves its highest form: lucid, economical, and—at its finest—quietly irresistible.