LawProse Lessons

If there’s one thing that LawProse is famous for, it’s teaching lawyers how to frame legal problems clearly—so that readers will almost instantly understand what’s going on. It’s a tall order. If you’re engaged in advocacy or analysis, the most important thing is stating the problem clearly on page one. Right at the beginning. No …

LawProse Lesson 369: But what’s page one for? Read More »

They’re called malapropisms: humorous misapplications of words, usually because of a similarity in spelling, sound, or stress pattern. Our favorite recent example appeared last week when the New York Times printed, in large type, *low and behold in place of the age-old lo and behold. The word lo derives from Old English (450–1099) as an interjection that directs attention to the …

LawProse Lesson 368: Ripping what you sew. Read More »

You’ve surely heard of preventive lawyering, preventive maintenance, and preventive medicine. What they denote is related to the old adage: a stitch in time saves nine. But an extra stitch is often added to the word: the additional syllable in *preventative. That’s what you hear if you listen to many TV commentators. One popular announcer …

LawProse Lesson 367: Preventive measures are recommended. Read More »

Most kids begin to learn punctuation from ages 8 to 11. It’s a highly impressionable age. The curriculum is fairly standard except on one recurrent point: do you or don’t you put a comma before the and or or that introduces the final item in a list? Some curricula say yes; others say no. A …

LawProse Lesson 366: The Serial Comma Read More »

At LawProse, we’ve long stressed the capital importance of openers. We’ve likened the first paragraph of a brief—a good one, anyway—to the fanfare in a Sousa march. It announces the song. The point was reinforced recently in a BBC interview with the composer Monty Norman, who wrote the memorable theme song for the James Bond …

LawProse Lesson 365: The James Bond Theme Read More »

For a long time, Bryan Garner and LawProse were defenders of the hyphen in e-mail. No longer. We’re realists. This type of question—e-mail or email—depends on actual usage. From the inception of email in the late 1970s, the word was predominantly hyphenated. (Same with e-business, e-commerce, etc.) In print sources, the turning point came in …

LawProse Lesson 364: Please don’t deluge us with emails Read More »

Although only a select few legal writers know they exist, usage guides help anyone navigate the tributaries of legal language. Since it first appeared in 1987, Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage (GDLU) has been cited in more than 1,000 appellate opinions in state and federal courts. In the field of legal usage, nothing else has …

LawProse Lesson 363: A British Counterpart to Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage (Without Prejudice) Read More »

Editing well involves close reading. But this lesson is about bad editing. One way to edit poorly is to be preoccupied with other things. After all, you’re an important, extremely busy person with many demands on your time. Your billable rate—you think about it often—is quite high, though not everyone in your life understands that. …

LawProse Lesson 362: One of the Worst Ways to Edit Read More »

Many stylists avoid this phrasal preposition on grounds that it displaces too many ordinary, down-to-earth, single words: about <a rule about something>, at <surprised at how quickly>, by <surprised by the number>, for <same rules for individual taxpayers>, into <inquired into the problem>, of <unsure of the rule>, on <agree on a deadline>, to <the …

LawProse Lesson 361: The vague “as to” Read More »

Reviewing your own prose for improvements is a cognitively challenging task. You’re trying to spot problems—wherever they might lurk—and fix them. If you’re a self-editor with at least moderate skills, you’ll do better in more than one go. The task entails repetition. The challenge is to see your piece a little differently each time. Here’s …

LawProse Lesson 360: A Tip on Revision and Proofreading. Read More »

When will clarity come? We hope it’s when you arrive on the scene—when you begin writing about whatever it is. For many legal writers, that’s just not the case. They probably don’t understand the reader–writer relationship, in which the reader’s interests are paramount. They may lack the skill of empathy—or perhaps just the skill of …

LawProse Lesson 359: When you begin writing. Read More »

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 »