Becky Moler

What’s the great secret of writing style? Having something to say—and saying it clearly. You don’t say something because you want to write. That’s backward. You write because you want to say something. You have something to declare. Legal writers would do better work if they worried much more in the first instance about what …

LawProse Lesson 357: Have something to say. Read More »

At LawProse, while writing a federal appellate brief over the past two weeks, we’ve been reminded of Boone Pickens (1928–2019). Why? He liked to say that a fool with a plan can beat a genius without one. We believe that. We had a plan for this brief—meaning we had an outline with point headings. We …

LawProse Lesson 356: Building a Brief the Boone Pickens Way Read More »

Before pressing “send” on an e-mail message, tweet, or social-media post, it’s worth pausing to ask yourself some questions: ● Have you been completely truthful? ● Have you said all that you need to say? ● Have you been appropriately diplomatic and fair? Once you’ve answered those questions affirmatively, read the message once more for …

LawProse Lesson 355: Ask these questions before sending Read More »

Is we the people (or, in the Constitution, We the People) a set phrase that cannot be varied according to the grammar? Is it invariably we the people, or should we make it us the people when the phrase functions as the object of a verb or a preposition? We the people need to know; it’s …

LawProse Lesson 354: We the people demand to know! Read More »

We hear a lot about brevity. I once knew a partner in a law firm who filed a one-word reply: “Nonsense!” Then “Respectfully submitted,” etc. That’s doubtless unduly truncated for 999 out of 1,000 situations. Yet brevity matters. Not if it’s insufficient, but only if it adequately says what needs saying without an extra word. …

LawProse Lesson 353: Why succinctness matters. Read More »

On Tuesday, a legal giant died: Thomas M. Reavley of Houston, who was a Fifth Circuit judge for 41 years and a Texas Supreme Court justice for 7. You can read his obituaries [here] and [here]. Two years after I finished my clerkship with Judge Reavley, he wrote the foreword to my first book—which has been carried through …

LawProse Lesson 352: Remembering Judge Thomas M. Reavley Read More »

It’s surprising how often advocates say a court should do something and then fail to adequately orient their readers to their arguments. Three pitfalls pervade modern advocacy. The most serious is just launching into a discussion. “Jenkins erroneously relies on McCallister v. Blaine.” Talk, talk, talk. No signposts. Readers feel as if they’re drifting at sea. …

LawProse Lesson 351: The Power of Quantified Enumerations Read More »

You might think you have enough to worry about today. But have you thought about how to say the word that seems to be on everybody’s lips? We may as well get it straight: the traditional way to pronounce electoral is /ee-lek-tuh-ruhl/—with stress on the second syllable. It corresponds to electorate. It’s preferably not /ee-lek-tor-uhl/, nor is it …

LawProse Lesson 350: How to say “electoral” Read More »

Many legal writers are oblivious of an important secret of style: in wording a sentence, an emphatic word or phrase should fall at the end. Next time a piece of writing bores you, examine it closely. The writer is probably ending sentences with mundane information or arcana. That’s deathly. Consider two brief passages: ● Reynolds’s …

LawProse Lesson 349: A Key to Phrasing Sentences Read More »

My father dreams of “good grammar” once again being taught in schools. He thinks it to be part of the American dream: an aspiration available to everyone. But “good grammar” in the eyes of one person is, in the eyes of another, unacceptable intolerance toward linguistic variation. So a consensus in educational approach seems unlikely. …

LawProse Lesson 348: “Good Grammar”: My Father’s Dream Part II Read More »

My 90-year-old father, bless him, got upset yesterday upon reading a Washington Post piece saying that the Trump campaign is careening toward election day. He was incensed because he thought it should have said careering toward election day. Career, you see, has traditionally meant “to move wildly at full speed,” while careen has meant “to tip to one side while moving slowly.” He …

LawProse Lesson 347: My Father’s Dream Read More »

The modes of argument are as old as civilization: the ancient Greeks and Romans devised names for various rhetorical devices. Appeal to the pocketbook? The technical term is argumentum ad crumenam. Appeal to pity? It’s argumentum ad misericordiam. Use of rebuke or reproach? It’s epiplexis. A totally unsupported assertion? It’s an ipse dixit. The invocation of a looming catastrophe? …

LawProse Lesson #345: Presidential-Debate Bingo. Read More »

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was known for her clear, powerful prose. She learned how to write—how to write really well—from two undergraduate teachers at Cornell: Robert E. Cushman and Vladimir Nabokov. That’s right. In a 2006 interview with Bryan A. Garner, Justice Ginsburg explained that Nabokov “was a man in love with the sound of …

LawProse Lesson #344: Ginsburg on Good Writing. Read More »

Plain English is nobody’s mother tongue. You must work for it. You must learn to write “before” and “after” instead of the nearly ubiquitous “prior to” and “subsequent to.” In law, we’re besieged by bloated language. Unless you work tirelessly to simplify, you end up becoming just another purveyor of needless complexity and obfuscation. Take this 22-word …

LawProse Lesson #343: Nobody’s Mother Tongue. Read More »

I’m working on three big writing projects right now: a book on one aspect of 18th-century intellectual history; a biography of a mid-20th-century artist—a refugee from Hitler’s Germany; and a U.S. Supreme Court brief. Those are three very different genres, but the techniques are similar. You ask pertinent questions and embark on a quest for …

LawProse Lesson #342: The art of asking questions. Read More »

In April, the acclaimed legal historian Lawrence Friedman of Stanford Law School celebrated his 90th birthday. We applaud his many contributions to legal literature. In 1993, Friedman wrote an essay for the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, at the invitation of its founding editor, Bryan A. Garner. Here’s part of what Professor Friedman said then: Style …

LawProse Lesson #341: A Lesson from Professor Lawrence Friedman. Read More »

Writers are made, not born. Actually, they’re self-made. It’s always a conscious decision, and it takes conscious ongoing effort. Making yourself a good writer involves as much discipline as any other vocation or profession. And because discipline isn’t a trait that comes easily to most people, you’ll have a great advantage if you can develop …

LawProse Lesson #340: Discipline in writing. Read More »

Good writing is a marriage of good ideas with good expression. You must have both. The ideas need to be clear, and the language in which you express them must be clear. Clarity is the touchstone. A vague, fuzzy idea can at best be stated obliquely; any clear, solid idea can be expressed clearly. Unfortunately, …

LawProse Lesson #339: What is good writing? Read More »

At LawProse, we revise as much as the time will allow. For letters that may be three rounds; for briefs, ten rounds; for contracts, fifteen. For books, having more than a hundred revisions isn’t unusual. We like what Justice Louis Brandeis once said: There is no good writing—just good rewriting. The key to the writing …

LawProse Lesson #338: Revising your prose. Read More »