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The JALWD, the world’s best English-language journal of legal writing (Sorry, Scribes), is now available on line, courtesy of ALWD. Browse the current issues and the archives, but try not to cut yourself on those cutting edges. (Hat tip to Legal Writing Prof Blog.)
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
— George Orwell, Politics and the English Language. (Hat tip to Ed.)
The corollary: When you turn to long word and exhausted idioms, the reader suspects a gap between your real and your declared aims.
Bryan Garner has interviewed eight of the current U.S. Supreme Court justices, seeking their views on legal writing. Now LawProse has uploaded videos of those interviews on one web page. Watch and learn. (Hat-tip trail: Simple Justice, via Underdog.)
