LawProse Lessons

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 […]

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

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

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

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

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,

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

We recently saw a cartoon in which one character says to another, “I’m thinking of writing a book.” The other responds, “Can a boring person write an interesting book?” The answer is a resounding no. A boring person can’t write an interesting book. An unintelligent person can’t write an intelligent letter. A mean-spirited person can’t

Why should it matter whether you say with regard to or *with regards to? (The asterisk indicates nonstandard English.) Anyway or *anyways? We have a way to go or *We have a ways to go? Couldn’t care less or *could care less? Regardless or *irregardless? Either way, everybody knows what you mean. It’s just that one expression typifies educated English, and the other typifies uneducated

            Lawyers are often called on to make arguments about the interpretation of legal texts. Too many go straight to probable intention, policy, and consequences—perhaps because legal education from 1950 to the present has emphasized those factors the most.             But since the late 1980s, textualism has been on the rise—perhaps primarily from the influence

Law-school deans aren’t known to produce great scholarship. They’re too busy in meetings and writing fundraising letters all day. Most of them once produced scholarship, but it slows to a dribble once they assume a deanship.           The great exception here is Ward Farnsworth, dean of the University of Texas School of Law. He has

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lawyer filing a brief or a college student turning in a paper: you must double-check your references. That means two things: (1) getting the names and the pages right, and (2) verifying all quotations word for word and letter for letter. If you’ve had to omit a word or

Golfers use a great expression to describe what happens when one player follows another player on the putting green—someone with a similar putt. The second player “goes to school” on the first—that is, learns about the speed and break of the putt. Going second lends an advantage.           At LawProse, perhaps because we’re erstwhile golfers,

Why every lawyer needs a home copy of The Law of Judicial Precedent. In the past month, three lawyers and one appellate judge have written to ask for citations to the ground-breaking treatise The Law of Judicial Precedent (2016). They were stuck at home and didn’t have a copy ready at hand. We supplied the

Why every litigator needs a home copy of Reading Law. Over the past five years, the U.S. Supreme Court has cited the Scalia & Garner treatise Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts in 32 cases. Since its publication in 2012, it has been cited in more than 1,200 appellate decisions—far more than any other

The Seven Types of English Sentences. At a time when we all need distractions from the news, it seems timely to remind ourselves of something as beautiful as English syntax. In English, there are seven basic patterns that an independent clause can follow. Only seven. (Not counting that incomplete sentence, or this one.) The basic

Rulebooks vs. Style Guides. It has become fashionable lately in linguistic circles to say that people confuse style manuals with rulebooks (grammars). But the supposed distinction is highly questionable. Good usage guides are essentially both: they’re style manuals dealing with both grammatical issues and stylistic preferences that improve phrasing and word choice. Many questions of

Standard English and Nonconformity. Standards enforce conformity, and Standard Written English demands conformity with literary tradition. When it comes to style, even some brazen nonconformists—writers like David Foster Wallace—famously prized Standard Written English. One way of enhancing Standard English (written or spoken) has been adults’ tendency to correct children of a certain age (preferably, say,

The Know-How of an Expert. Do you have a hobby you’re passionate about? Perhaps it’s coin-collecting, or rowing, or gardening, or sports cars, or high-school football. Whatever it may be, you’ve doubtless gained considerable expertise over the years. And it’s a joy to encounter someone else with the same passion, isn’t it? You take your

Openers To be highly accomplished at any skill, you must observe others who are accomplished. That’s just the way it is. If you’re not a serious, regular reader—and haven’t been for extended periods in your life—you can’t possibly hope to produce good writing yourself. So for at least 15 minutes a day, read attentively. The