The Trial Practice Tips Weblog

Great Writing: A Sign of Clear Thinking

Time spent learning to write is never wasted. Here is what Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37Signals, had to say about writing skills in their popular business book, Rework--

Hire Great Writers

If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn't matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off.

That's because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else's shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate.

Writing is making a comeback all over our society. Look at how much people e-mail and text-message now rather than talk on the phone. Look at how much communication happens via instant messaging and blogging. Writing is today's currency for good ideas.

For writing tips specific to legal writing, see the Legal Writing category of Trial Practice Tips.

Banish These Words from Your Lexicon

At The Third Apple, Bill Wilson writes about "Legalese and other words to banish," including enjoin, "comes now" (a favorite target), and purported.

Legal Writing Tip: Remote Relative Pronouns

According to Bryan Garner, a remote relative pronoun is a "prime indicator of a sloppy sentence." A relative pronoun such as that or which is "remote" when it doesn't appear immediately after the noun it modifies.

Garner provides these examples:

Defendants knowingly conspired to bring securities onto the market that could not be legally marketed.

There is an outstanding warrant against Mr. Erutu in Ethiopia, which on its face declares that he is to be arrested for expressing his political beliefs.

Sentences like these cause confusion in the reader. In every case, the sentence should be rewritten so that the relative pronoun follows the noun it modifies.

Source: The Winning Brief, by Bryan A. Garner.

Related post: "Self-Editing Tips for Legal Writers."

Tips for Better Legal Writing

My three articles on legal writing, all originally published in the Illinois Bar Journal, continue to get a steady stream of Google-fueled web traffic.

I've reposted these three articles on my personal website. Follow the links to--

"Five Steps Towards Persuasive Writing,"

"Improve Your Legal Writing with Five Simple Rules," and

"First Drafts Made Easy."

Hundreds of other legal-writing tips can be found here at Trial Practice Tips in the "Legal Writing" category.

Legal-Writing Resources on the Web

From Barger on Legal Writing: "Visit and learn from legal writing sites around the country," a list of good legal-writing resources available on the Internet.

On this weblog, you'll find lots of legal-writing tips in the legal-writing category.

Better Legal Writing: Tips from a Journalist

"Legal writers can learn a lot from journalists about writing," says Raymond Ward at the (new) legal writer. With this in mind, he offers Tim Radford’s "25 commandments for journalists," subtitled “a manifesto for the simple scribe.” Good reading.

This Week: Writing Tips at Lifehacker

The always-interesting (but not law-related) website Lifehacker is featuring posts this week about writing--

"We're Writing About Writing This Week at Lifehacker."

So stay tuned to Lifehacker. You can't go wrong.

Related posts: See this weblog's Legal Writing category for hundreds of legal-writing tips.

Legal Writing: Writing Bad Briefs

From the Journal of the New York State Bar Association: "Writing Bad Briefs: How to Lose a Case in 100 Pages or More," by Judge Gerald Lebovits. (Link from the (new) legal writer.)

Legal Writing: A Motivational Reminder

Here's a simple reminder that will help you get moving on that first draft--

Don't get it right, get it written

I'm not sure where I heard this, but it stuck with me. It certainly makes sense. You can worry about getting it right later, in the revision stage.

For more on first drafts, see my article "First Drafts Made Easy," originally published in the Illinois Bar Journal.

Using "And/Or" -- Just Plain Dumb

Leslie O'Flahavan at Writing Matters concludes that using "and/or" is "just plain dumb."

To find out why, read her post, which includes lots of support from writing experts.

At the (new) legal writer, Raymond Ward adds to the debate, concluding that while not "plain dumb," he does try to avoid using "and/or."