LawProse Lessons

Many beginning legal writers think that established ones must have a formula for success. That’s just not so. The only secrets of success—beyond constant study of quality nonfiction and effective editorials—are dogged research, unstinting discipline, the embrace of individuality, and the spurning of complacency. These qualities lead to a kind of organized freedom. What makes …

LawProse Lesson #397: The formula for success. Read More »

For most people, writing is a frustrating and often unpleasant experience. If you actually enjoy the process, you’re both unusual and fortunate. Although every competent writer enjoys having written, composing the first draft is, for the majority, a difficult and joyless task—or perhaps an absolute horror. If you feel that way, you probably delay a …

LawProse Lesson #396: Buckling down to write. Read More »

Admittedly, there’s no universal method. But in a recent interview with Oxford University Press, Bryan A. Garner explains what made him such an inveterate word-lover—a passion that started in his teens. His path was unconventional, to say the least, and we think you’ll find the story charming. The interview is here. You’re sure to encounter …

LawProse Lesson 395: How to interest kids in language Read More »

A big problem haunts every composition course and every expository writer: how to attack a rhetorical challenge and work out the details. How do you start a writing project, and how do you complete it efficiently? If a writing course merely focuses on what sentences and paragraphs should end up resembling, students are left to …

LawProse Lesson #394: The Big Problem That Lurks in Every Writing Course. Read More »

It’s only slumbering. It can be awakened through study and practice. It takes time and effort. Some villains poison, strangle, and knife good writing by pandering to credulity and indolence—promoting the false belief that there’s a quick-and-easy method that will magically improve writing with miraculously little work. At LawProse, we promote good writing as a …

LawProse Lesson #393: Good writing isn’t dead. Read More »

At LawProse, we don’t teach remedial writing. The legal writers who benefit most from our seminars are the ones who are already quite good. Why is that? Because those are the ones who actually attend. So it’s natural that we’d focus on them. Why are bad legal writers unlikely to attend? Because incompetence doesn’t recognize itself. …

LawProse Lesson #392: The best get even better. Read More »

What do judges and law clerks want from a brief-writer? Once your readers sit down to focus—perhaps in a receptive mood—they demand certain information: What does the statute or contract actually require, and what precisely has happened between the parties? Does the text apply, or does it not? If it’s a criminal case, judicial readers want to …

LawProse Lesson 391: Law graduates who can write Read More »

Within the legal profession, there is an enormous and ever-growing demand for skillful writing. Good money is to be made by anyone who can deliver. But the writing must conform to certain requirements, which are obvious and reasonable when you know them. Yet they tend to escape the notice of the average legal writer. Some …

LawProse Lesson 390: Is writing well an inborn “gift”? Read More »

We hope not. It’s not the best reason to write. We hope you’re writing because you have an argument—or a series of arguments—to make on behalf of a client. You must have something worth communicating. Otherwise, you’d just be filling pages—and what you’d say would probably be forced, vacillating, and only half-true. You’d be doing …

LawProse Lesson 389: Are you writing a brief because it’s due? Read More »

Many people start writing before they know what they want to say—even before they know precisely what they hope to achieve. The result is typically flabby, disorganized, verbose prose. The best way to produce good writing is to follow a procedure. Until you have lots of experience and self-knowledge as a writer, you can benefit from …

LawProse Lesson 388: A Prewriting Checklist for Effective Legal Writing. Read More »

When you get your writing published, there’s always a payoff—sometimes far beyond your most hopeful dreams. A solid group of articles, a few insightful book reviews, or even a good monograph or book can mean the difference between a so-so career and a stellar one. Four benefits are sure to come your way: You’ll add …

LawProse Lesson 387: Why lawyers should write for publication. Read More »

You want to write well in law? Not just to write—which any lawyer can do—but to write well. The distinction between writing and writing well is the difference between shooting baskets in your driveway and high-level competitive basketball, between humming tunes and virtuoso vocal performances, between duffers’ rounds of golf and tournament victories. There’s no mystery about how to write effective …

LawProse Lesson 386: There is no mystery to good legal writing. Read More »

Eight steps—whether you have an hour or half a day: Establish your deadline and figure out what the writing should accomplish. Block out interruptions.Decide what points to make to accomplish your goal. Phrase these points—preferably two or three—in distinct sentences. Know that it’s good to limit your ideas, developing only two or three in depth …

LawProse Lesson 385: How to Write Under Pressure Read More »

Many years ago, Judge Jerome Frank of the Second Circuit wrote that writing is essentially “speech heightened and polished.” Writing is what you would say if you talked ideally. It should be the equivalent of speech at considered leisure. At its best, then, prose is always natural-sounding to the reader’s ear—to the mind’s ear. There are three …

LawProse Lesson #384: The differences between speech and writing. Read More »

Lawyers are often called on to write reports for various types of clients, from legislative committees to patentees to special litigation committees, to name just a few. They can run to hundreds or even thousands of pages. Longer than a memo, a report has these expected sections, at a minimum: Title page. The title page contains …

LawProse Lesson #383: The parts of a report. Read More »

Law deans often hear employers say, send us graduates who can write decently. But what does that mean? No memo or brief or letter is better than what’s in it. No amount of style and form, attention to punctuation and phrasing, can make good writing out of unreliable information and bad judgments. A good piece of …

LawProse Lesson #382: Law graduates who can write. Read More »

Collect all relevant information, facts, and illustrations.Draft a key sentence—a full sentence—stating your main objectives.Make a list of all major and minor subject headings. Then turn these into full sentences so that you have a propositional outline. Rearrange propositions as necessary.Draft the body of the report as quickly as possible, composing paragraphs in support of …

LawProse Lesson #381: How to write an effective report. Read More »

We know lawyers who are avid gardeners, sports fans, musicians, oenophiles, philatelists, car enthusiasts, and golfers. Of course, that’s just a sampling. It’s good to have a hobby you take seriously. We applaud that. But how many lawyers know as much about using the language well as they do about their favorite hobby? Not many, …

LawProse Lesson #380: Lawyers as hobbyists Read More »

Have you been utterly truthful?Have you said all you need to say?Have you been appropriately diplomatic and fair?In your opener, have you made your points quickly and clearly?Have you avoided a slow wind-up that unnecessarily postpones the message?In the middle, have you proved your points with specifics?Is the closer fresh-sounding but consistent with what precedes …

LawProse Lesson #379: Seven Questions to Ask When Revising Read More »

Our lessons on possessives have prompted more queries than we’d expected. Now that we’ve covered the plural possessive, people are clamoring for advice on the singular possessive. Here’s all you need to know if your name is Burns: Ken Burns’s films(singular possessive—the preferred form with ’s ) the Burnses are here(the only correct plural for Ken and …

LawProse Lesson 378 : No More Possessive Puzzles! Read More »