Shortly before he died last month, Charles Krauthammer, the illustrious political commentator, gave an interview in which he discussed his writing process. Just as we do in LawProse seminars, he emphasized the architecture of writing:“You write a column, an essay, anything: if you get the structure wrong, you’ll never get it right. You’ll spend hours whacking your way through the weeds with a machete, and you won’t be able to escape the marsh.”Krauthammer’s method of producing a first draft was unremarkable—he simply dictated it into a tape-recorder. The key to good dictation, of course, is having the outline first. He always had that covered.No, the remarkable thing about his process was what happened after he had a complete draft:“I spend four or five hours editing the text. I go through it 15 times from beginning to end—cleaning, sanding, polishing, just like a clay ornament—until I get it right. Then I sleep on it. That’s the best part. Then I wake up in the morning and spend an hour because by then, I discover 15 egregious errors or wrong ways I’d put things.“That’s a total of five or six editing hours for a column of usually under 1,000 words. Maybe that’s surprising only to people who aren’t professional writers. For those devoted to the craft, that amount of editing time seems quite normal.What’s really great about Krauthammer’s statement is that in just six sentences, he summed up an excellent regimen for producing lapidary prose.Further reading:
The Elements of Legal Style 218–19 (2d ed. 2002).
HBR Guide to Better Business Writing 31–32 (2012).
Legal Writing in Plain English 162–64 (2d ed. 2013).
Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges 80–81 (2008).
The Winning Brief 68–70 (3d ed. 2014).
Attend the most popular CLE seminar of all time. More than 215,000 people—including lawyers, judges, law clerks, and paralegals—have benefited since the early 1990s. You'll learn the keys to professional writing and acquire no-nonsense techniques to make your letters, memos, and briefs more powerful.
You'll also learn what doesn't work and why—know-how gathered through Professor Garner's unique experience in training lawyers at the country's top law firms, state and federal courts, government agencies, and Fortune 500 companies.
Professor Garner gives you the keys to make the most of your writing aptitude—in letters, memos, briefs, and more. The seminar covers five essential skills for persuasive writing:
framing issues that arrest the readers' attention;
cutting wordiness that wastes readers' time;
using transitions deftly to make your argument flow;
quoting authority more effectively; and
tackling your writing projects more efficiently.
He teaches dozens of techniques that make a big difference. Most important, he shows you what doesn't work—and why—and how to cultivate skillfulness.