The Legal Writing Institute has uploaded volume 14 of its journal, featuring a symposium on storytelling. I haven’t had a chance to read any of the articles yet, but many of them look intriguing. (Hat tip to Legal Writing Prof Blog.)
If you’re a summer associate, then Ross Guberman has a 12-step program for you to improve your writing and impress the firm. (Hat tip to Ross-Blakley Law Library Blog.)
In The Art of Written Persuasion: The Rise of Written Persuasion, Troy Simpson traces the rise of written advocacy in England and Wales, Australia, and America. This article is the first of a series. In future installments, Simpson will examine why, despite the rise of written advocacy, lawyers’ written-advocacy skills remain under-developed and will suggest some possible solutions. (Hat tip to beSpacific.)
Like rappers and shock-jocks, lawyers are guilty of cheapening language, and in the process we have made our profession less civil. So says Kenneth P. Nolan in this article from the Summer 2007 issue of Litigation. Take a few minutes to read it. And try to remember that invective is rarely persuasive.
To emphasize something in writing, many lawyers resort to typographical gimmicks: italics, bold, underlining, all capital letters, or some combination of these. To de-emphasize something, many lawyers either bury it in a footnote or, worse, omit it completely, hoping that if ignored, the thing will just go away.
There is a better way. Actually there are many better ways. In To Go Boldly Without Bold, Dr. Benjamin R. Opipari describes several more sophisticated ways to emphasize or de-emphasize things. His lessons are similar to those taught by Dr. George D. Gopen; they involve understanding the reader’s expectations about the structure of sentences and paragraphs, and using various techniques to either meet those expecations or (every now and then) to upset them.
One thing I learned from Dr. Opipari’s article is not to overuse the em-dash. He recommends using the em-dash sparingly, “to destroy the natural direction of the sentence, to forcefully move it in another direction so that what comes after is a sudden shift in meaning and a surprise to the reader. In other words, the dash should break the readers’ expectations of what they thought was coming. Dashes at the end of a clause should reveal something surprising, ironic, or shocking.” He suggests that “[t]he writer who uses five or six dashes on a page for any reason forfeits any expectation of surprise.”
I’m not sure that em-dashes should be restricted to the degree that Dr. Opipari suggests. Bryan Garner, for one, calls the em-dash “the second most underused mark of punctuation” in legal writing, and recommends using it to “clarify a sentence that is clogged up with commas.”1 Still, I must acknowledge my own overuse of the em-dash to create emphasis, probably because it’s too easy: much easier than restructuring a sentence or a paragraph. So my personal short-term resolution is not to banish the em-dash, but to use it no more than once per page.
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1 Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 715 (2d ed. 1995).
John Paschetto, a Delaware lawyer, has written an excellent article on proofreading. In it, he explains the difference between editing and proofreading, advocates proofreading in stages, and offers valuable tips to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your proofreading. (Hat tip to Legal Writing Prof Blog.)
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 ABA Journal reports on a psychological study suggesting that judges often base their decisions on intuition rather than deliberate analysis. For lawyers, this phenomenon is either a problem or an opportunity. For writing tips on making it the latter, by influencing those judicial snap judgments to go your way, read John Bursch’s excellent article, Appealing to Judicial Snap Judgments. (Note: if you read the Winter 2005 issue of Certworthy, you were on to this problem and John’s tips for dealing with it three years ago.)
Most connoisseurs of good legal writing know that two of its finest artisans are Seventh Circuit Judges Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner. What is it about their writing that we like so much? It’s their impure writing, which Posner himself describes as “impure.” In this article, Brian J. Paul analyzes what Easterbrook and Posner do that sets them apart. (Hat tip to Wash Park Prophet.)
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s web site features a monthly Top Ten column. This month’s installment is Top Ten Ways to Achieve Good Legal Writing, by Professor Paula Colby-Clements of the Massachusetts School of Law. It’s a good article. Practicing lawyers should heed not only its content, but it’s publication by the ACC — a sign that corporate counsel value good legal writing.
Among the gems in Prof. Colby-Clements’s article is this simile about not trying to make too many points in one writing:
It’s comparable to lying on a bed of nails: if there are too many points (spikes), nothing gets through. When there are only a few, they penetrate the skin.
(Hat tip to Mister Thorne.)
