Advice on Ghostwriting Forum

[Anonymous User]

Regarding a clerkship with some administrative judges. The position would basically involve ghostwriting lots of the easier opinions for ~7 judges. They said they would expect the ghostwritten opinions to match the writing style of the judge who would sign off on the opinion. To do this, I'd be expected to familiarize myself with the ~7 judges' writing styles by reviewing their past opinions.

I could see myself familiarizing myself with one judge's style no problem, but with seven? And having to switch my style back and forth all the time?

I'm honestly not sure how well I'd be able to keep all their writing styles straight - at least not without taking an inordinate amount of time on what are supposed to be easy cases that are expected to get out the door quickly.

Does anyone have experience with ghostwriting for multiple judges at one time?

Or just have general advice (or know of resources) on how to effectively match your writing style to that of a judge you're ghostwriting for?


Thanks

[Anonymous User]

I clerked for many ALJs at once and over the course of 2 years. It's not very hard to pick up on their nuances and quirks in general. As with anywhere, some judges are more anal and demanding, some are more hands-off. I fortunately never worked with any that were super heavy editors and expected the world of their clerks, but those do exist - one judge was notoriously the worst to work for because she was so insanely particular, expected her clerks to do everything exactly how she wanted, and got unreasonably upset when things weren't perfect.

All I can tell you to do is to read their opinions and take notes. A lot of the differences are apparent and easy to remember. Many judges didn't have anything idiosyncratic except citation forms.

[Anonymous User]

All I can tell you to do is to read their opinions and take notes.

OP here.

Yeah, that makes sense. I could review a few of each judge's opinions, and take notes / keep samples in a word doc on each judge, and then just review that before finalizing an opinion for them.

Maybe not so bad. At least unless they're super anal like the judge you knew of - that would suck.

[ggocat]

I've written for multiple judges (about 5 post-grad), albeit not at the same time. Some people like certain things done certain ways, but I think overall writing style hasn't been very different among the judges. Style, in my experience, has only differed w/r/t certain words they like to use, whether they like numerals or spelled-out numbers, whether they like sentences for subheadings or just short phrases, etc. That's pretty easy to pick up. You can just keep a document with notes about idiosyncrasies for each judge.

I wouldn't read/scan more than one or two opinion from each judge; and even then, do it right before you start writing. The best way to learn idiosyncrasies will be when you get your first draft back from the judge, and the judge has made edits. Make sure you follow any stylistic/technical edits for that judge next time you turn in a draft.

[Anonymous User]

OP here.

Thanks ggocat, the advice is appreciated.