LawProse Lessons

More on legal editing: changing be-verbs to action verbs. In last week’s lesson—an overview of the LawProse editing method—we recommended converting be-verbs into stronger verbs. Be-verbs lack the punch of action verbs. Overusing weakens your prose, diluting its impact. Although the English language has eight be-verbs (is, am, are, was, were, being, be, been), it’s […]

“Please edit this.” Have you been asked this before by a friend, colleague, or supervising partner? What kind of edits do they want? Suggestions for content? Corrections of punctuation, spelling, or grammar? It can be a difficult and frustrating request. There are so many ways to go about editing a legal document. At LawProse, we

Parentheses or em-dashes? How do you decide? Good writers use parentheses and em-dashes skillfully to tighten and strengthen their prose. Although a writer’s individual style—together with the information or message to be conveyed—determines how these marks are used, some guidelines can suggest which mark to choose in a specific instance. Here are the basics. Use

LawProse Lesson #183  What’s wrong with initial-caps point headings in briefs?      Two things. First, most lawyers don’t know how to type text in initial caps properly. But second—and far more important—proper point headings must capsulize points. They’re complete sentences, not mere phrases. So they’re not like titles such as Gone with the Wind

Home in and *hone in. Home in is the correct phrase, meaning “to proceed toward (a target)” or “direct attention to (a thing, idea, or objective)” {after flying a few miles, the pigeon homed in on the cage} {in the response, the lawyer homed in on the affirmative defense in the criminal code}. The phrase

Grammar and usage resources. Which grammar books are most useful? People frequently ask this question. Perhaps the most compendious treatment can be found in my own chapter five of The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed. 2010). That chapter, which first appeared (in a shorter form) in the 15th edition, is essentially a restatement of

There are certain bits of knowledge that distinguish connoisseurs from poseurs, professionals from dilettantes, cognoscenti from wannabes. In the realm of grammar and writing, it tends to be the sureness that sentence-starting conjunctions are perfectly acceptable and often desirable (connoisseurs), or else the certitude that they are outright mistakes (misinformed poseurs). From at least the

As such. Have you noticed the epidemic of poor usage involving as such? In this phrase, such is a pronoun requiring an antecedent. Here are two examples: Ex.: The lawyer did not intend to write a derogatory review of the new book, but the author saw it as such. [Derogatory review is the antecedent of

Do you know Standard American Punctuation? Let’s take a well-written paragraph—one that shows some linguistic savvy—and remove all the punctuation. Can you punctuate it meaningfully? Capitalize as necessary to begin sentences. “In the end given so much evidence to the contrary the popularity of the austerity myth has come about largely through the power of

Whoever vs. whomever. Like who and whom, whoever and whomever can be tricky for both lawyers and nonlawyers. Here are a few guidelines that should help: If the word completing the syntax after –ever is a verb, and the –ever word is the subject of that verb, the correct choice is whoever {please send the

Who vs. whom. Edward Sapir, the philosopher of language, prophesied in 1921 that “within a couple of hundred years . . . . not even the most learned jurist will be saying ‘Whom did you see?’ By that time the whom will be . . . delightfully archaic . . . . No logical or

Just between you and ME . . . The grammatical blunder *between you and I is pervasive in writing and speech generally, and legal writers are hardly immune. Writing or saying *between you and I (or *for you and I, *to you and I, and so forth) is invariably wrong: Whenever a pronoun is the

Me, Myself, and I. A pervasive uncertainty about pronoun cases has led to the rampant use of myself as a stuffy substitute for I or me. Not this: Taylor and myself attended the settlement conference. But this: Taylor and I attended the settlement conference. Not this: Please send the signed contract to Cynthia or myself.

On behalf of and in behalf of. On behalf of stalwart stylists everywhere, I write in behalf of maintaining the traditional distinction between these phrases. Careful writers distinguish between them. To act or speak in behalf of someone is to independently promote that person’s interest, praise, or defense—or to act on one’s own for that

What’s new in the third edition of The Winning Brief?Answer: Hot off the presses, the 775-page third edition contains nine new sections. This new material includes tips on understanding judges’ reading habits, answering opponents’ arguments, writing effective reply briefs, using authorities persuasively, and organizing arguments based on statutes and contracts. The book also contains what

On or upon? These prepositions are usually synonymous and used in virtually identical ways. The distinctions are primarily in tone and connotation. On — the shorter, simpler, more direct word — is generally preferable {the trial court’s decision was based on the parol-evidence rule} {service on a defendant} {the case centers on a 2006 contract}

Why does it matter how you state a legal issue? It matters in the most fundamental way: it can determine whether you win or lose. It’s the most important aspect of a lawsuit. Bryan Garner, author of The Winning Brief, has been called the preeminent expert on issue-framing. He teaches lawyers to fashion appealing issues

How much can you learn about persuasive motion practice in one day? A whole lot — if you have the right teacher and the right approach. LawProse’s new Winning Brief seminar — with its 3d-edition 775-page coursebook published by Oxford University Press — breaks the subject of persuasive litigation writing into 100 bite-sized lessons that

Structuring a textual argument. Here’s a little-known secret of advocacy: courts tend to analyze questions of interpretation systematically — in this order: (1) text, (2) structure, (3) purpose, and (4) history. The courts, especially federal courts, have explicitly endorsed the technique. In fact, they developed it from the germ of an idea expressed by Justice