Improving legal writing Forum

[transferquestiontls]

Honestly, what's the best way to improve my legal writing before I start working? As someone who's still in school, I don't really have any chance to receive constructive feedback for my writing (at least not since my 1l writing course, and no unfortunately, my school doesn't really provide legal writing courses for upperclassmen).

I've heard Bryan Garner's books are pretty good, so I ordered some of them. But, if anyone has any tips or advice, I'd really appreciate it!

[Lestersandy]

Read.

Find good legal writers. Read them. (some suggestions: Kagan, Sutton, Wood, Easterbrook, Thompson, Kethledge).

Ross Guberman has a good legal writing book that will also point you to good brief writers.

Also read. A lot.

[Pneumonia]

Garner's books are great; Elements of Legal Style is a good starting point. Your goal as an associate should be to produce writing that is free of stylistic mistakes (and also grammar errors and typos, of course). That sounds like a low bar, but it will put you ahead of most of your peers. Passive voice is the most common stylistic mistake. Learn to recognize it and to eradicate it. Other common stylistic mistakes at the sentence level include lack of parallel construction, poor word choices (e.g., "prior to" instead of "before"), and sentences that are longer than necessary. Learn to recognize and correct all of these.

From a structural level, learn to outline before you write. And if it is useful to you, learn to use the "madman" method that Garner describes in Legal Writing in Plain English and elsewhere. Also, train yourself to always use roadmap paragraphs and short topic sentences for each paragraph. If you can consistently produce writing that follows all of these rules, you will be in very good shape. They are simple but too often ignored.

Here are a few other tips that are simple but improve readability by miles:

Always do your very best to avoid acronyms. Do this by introducing the best short forms you can think of. If the partner disagrees, then she can switch back to acronyms. Acronyms are most often a crutch, but sometimes they are common in a given practice area even though unfamiliar to you. What I'm saying is make sure you don't use them as a crutch. And certainly don't introduce any new ones. Footnote one here is a good example of the problem and a remedy: https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/ ... 869487.pdf.

Use relative time spans rather than precise dates (unless the precise date matters). So if you are writing something like a chronology you would begin with "In November of last year" or similar, and then the following sentences would say "One month later..." "Several months later..." "Around the same time..." etc. If you must use a series of precise dates, put the dates at the end of the sentence. Likewise, put long citations near the end of paragraphs where possible. Also, use pronouns or names instead of designations ("Smith" is better than "Defendant").

You may be thinking: "This is all too basic; I want to learn how to write really well--not just follow simple rules." As basic as it sounds, good lawyers flout these rules every day. Part of it is that they don't care. Part of it is that they're too busy to do a better job. But the more you internalize the rules, the better you'll be at implementing them in your first drafts rather than your second or third.

Following these and the rest of Garner's rules will guarantee that you produce clean, intelligible drafts that most lawyers will recognize as good writing. Of course, your ideas must be good as well, but that is another matter. The next step is to layer your writing with the rhetorical devices that elevate great writing over the merely good: analogy, metaphor, alliteration, turns of phrase, captivating intros, etc. Garner's books won't teach you how to do that. I don't think anything can teach you how to do that, although some have made efforts to: http://www.wardfarnsworth.com/. You won't be expected to add any of these "bonus features" to anything you write (although if you do, and do it well, people will appreciate it).

In short, learn and follow Garner's rules.

[Pneumonia]

Read.

Find good legal writers. Read them. (some suggestions: Kagan, Sutton, Wood, Easterbrook, Thompson, Kethledge).

Ross Guberman has a good legal writing book that will also point you to good brief writers.

Also read. A lot.

This is good advice. I would add that you should read these things actively. In all of them you will see roadmap paragraphs, short topic sentences (and short sentences generally), and strong organization. Take one of Kagan's opinions and read only the topic sentences. You'll understand the decision's most important points. Notice that Sutton always gets all the way through his positive argument before addressing counterarguments. Etc. As you're reading good writing, ask yourself why its good.

[RaceJudicata]

Read.

Find good legal writers. Read them. (some suggestions: Kagan, Sutton, Wood, Easterbrook, Thompson, Kethledge).

Ross Guberman has a good legal writing book that will also point you to good brief writers.

Also read. A lot.

This is good advice. I would add that you should read these things actively. In all of them you will see roadmap paragraphs, short topic sentences (and short sentences generally), and strong organization. Take one of Kagan's opinions and read only the topic sentences. You'll understand the decision's most important points. Notice that Sutton always gets all the way through his positive argument before addressing counterarguments. Etc. As you're reading good writing, ask yourself why its good.

Agree 100%. Also read advocacy pieces- can get free stuff on SCOTUS blog (granted, you almost certainly won’t be writing scotus briefs), look for briefs from the top appellate lawyers - Paul clement, Neil Kaytal, etc.

Reading other briefs has helped me
Immensely. If you read broadly - and carefully - you’ll pick up a lot of tricks and stylistic moves.