The Legal Writer
Author: Mark P. Painter
Publisher:
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 174
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPosts
The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing
Author: Catherine J. Cameron
Publisher:
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781531007744
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat evidence exists to support the advice that legal writing professors offer their students? For example, do legal readers really prefer short sentences and the active voice? Is outlining the best way to start a memo or brief? Can a certain font type make a brief more persuasive? Is deductive reasoning the most effective form of legal reasoning? Will a legal writer view the use of the word "clearly" with skepticism? Are judges annoyed by minor grammatical errors or typos? These questions and many more are addressed in The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing. This text provides easy access to research in the form of social psychological experiments, statistical analyses, and surveys (some done by others and some done by the authors), which suggest that much of the advice given to legal writing students is backed by solid science. As a supplemental text for a first-year legal writing course, or as a primary text for an advanced legal writing course, The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing provides the evidence--besides saying "because I told you so"--for requiring students to follow many common legal writing conventions. As the first comprehensive compilation of research addressing legal writing, The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing provides a much-needed resource to legal writing professionals. The second edition updates the research in the first addition and adds chapters addressing the science of passive voice and the effect of legal training on how students read legal text. Praise for the first edition: "Even when incorporating the scientific elements of writing, this book is highly readable and well paced. In fact, the explanations not only embrace their scientific roots but the underlying philosophy as well, including chapters on deductive reasoning and syllogisms. This adds to the appeal of the book, especially for those less inclined to a scientific read...Overall, Cameron and Long have created a book that is valuable for first-year law students and legal scholars alike. Its insights bring new life into old legal writing wisdom. The book's well-organized discussions on everything from outlining to the ethics of legal writing make this a great addition to a legal writing collection." -- Amy Lipford, Law Library Journal, Vol. 107:4 Praise for the second edition: "The Science Behind the Art of Legal Writing is a book that belongs in every academic law library collection and every legal writing professor's office. In the introduction, the authors acknowledge the plethora of legal writing texts available to complement any legal writing program, but this is the first to explain the science behind the directives given by legal writing professors and legal writing textbooks. It is a one-stop shop for learning and understanding the science behind legal writ-ing, where students can learn to make informed and logical choices on how to structure their legal writing." -- Whitney A. Curtis, Law Library Journal, Vol. 112:3
Legal Writing
Author: Robert Edwin Bacharach
Publisher: American Bar Association
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781641056595
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"A magnificent book on writing. Drawing on the lessons from psycholinguistics and rhetoric, Judge Bacharach has written a remarkably practical book on how to write effectively. Judge Bacharach illustrates his points with very specific suggestions and countless examples from briefs from top lawyers and opinions of judges. I learned so much from this wonderful book." -- Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, Berkeley School of Law
Legal Writing Style
Author: Henry Weihofen
Publisher: West Academic Publishing
Published: 1980
Total Pages: 348
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTopics in this law school text include a section on writing law school and bar examinations, amplified material on sentence structure and organization, and drafting principles. The book is equally suited for use in courses that concentrate on brief-writing, emphasize formal legal documents, or concentrate on the writing of memoranda or papers similar to law review comments. Also includes chapters on forcefulness, arranging words for emphasis, Opinions, and The Jurisdictional statement.
Legal Writing in Plain English
Author: Bryan A. Garner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2013-08-26
Total Pages: 285
ISBN-13: 022603139X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“This easy-to-follow guide is useful both as a general course of instruction and as a targeted aid in solving particular legal writing problems.” —Harvard Law Review Clear, concise, down-to-earth, and powerful—all too often, legal writing embodies none of these qualities. Its reputation for obscurity and needless legalese is widespread. For more than twenty years, Bryan A. Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English has helped address this problem by providing lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. The leading guide to clear writing in the field, this indispensable volume encourages legal writers to challenge conventions and offers valuable insights into the writing process that will appeal to other professionals: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. Accessible and witty, Legal Writing in Plain English draws on real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching. Trenchant advice covers all types of legal materials, from analytical and persuasive writing to legal drafting, and the book’s principles are reinforced by sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section. In this new edition, Garner preserves the successful structure of the original while adjusting the content to make it even more classroom-friendly. He includes case examples from the past decade and addresses the widespread use of legal documents in electronic formats. His book remains the standard guide for producing the jargon-free language that clients demand and courts reward. “Those who are willing to approach the book systematically and to complete the exercises will see dramatic improvements in their writing.” —Law Library Journal
Point Made
Author: Ross Guberman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-04
Total Pages: 426
ISBN-13: 0199943850
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn Point Made, Ross Guberman uses the work of great advocates as the basis of a valuable, step-by-step brief-writing and motion-writing strategy for practitioners. The author takes an empirical approach, drawing heavily on the writings of the nation's 50 most influential lawyers.
Clear and Effective Legal Writing
Author: Veda Charrow
Publisher: Aspen Publishers
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 400
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWith examples drawn from legal writing and student papers, this guide walks students through the writing process and helps them refine their skills in exercises throughout the book. The Second Edition features a reorganized Part I, including three new chapters that help students gain proficiency in reading and analyzing legal materials so they can write more effectively. Part II includes a systematic approach to legal writing; understanding your context; getting organized; writing clearly; writing effectively; and reviewing and editing. Part III covers the process of writing a legal memorandum and an appellate court brief. This Second Edition includes two examples of memoranda, An interoffice memo and a memo of points and authority; a streamlined appendix that provides an overview of English sentence structure; and many enhanced writing exercises.
Mightier Than the Sword
Author: C. Edward Good
Publisher: Legal Education, Limited
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 278
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Art and Craft of Judgment-Writing
Author: Max Barrett
Publisher:
Published: 2022-05-31
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9781787428577
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJudges are increasingly aware that the best way of enhancing public confidence in court systems is not only by providing a quality service but doing so compassionately and respectfully. The art and craft of judgment-writing is a critical element of this process. This book looks at the judgments of historically great judgment-writers from the US, UK and wider common law world (in particular Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Israel and New Zealand). It is written not from the perspective of what the author can teach but with the aim of identifying essential elements of good judgment-writing in great judgments and insightful commentary.Written by Dr Max Barrett, a judge of the High Court of Ireland, individual chapters focus on subjects such as judgment purpose, length, style and structure, concurring and dissenting judgments, judgment-writing for children and vulnerable parties, as well as more general lessons in good writing offered by great authors from Orwell to Twain. Among the lessons to be taken from great common law judges are that: a good judgment possesses an ability to rise above immediate facts and to see a problem in its wider perspective;a sense of empathy/sympathy for those faring badly is always important; andthere is nothing wrong with language that is occasionally flowery and ornate; however, the best judgments are crisp and persuasive.A great author such as Mark Twain teaches, for example, that: every element of a judgment should be necessary to that judgment and any unnecessary element excised;any person or event included in a judgment should be included for a reason; anda judge should always use the right word for what she wants to state, 'not its second cousin'.This book is intended for novice superior court judges, their more seasoned colleagues and all with an interest in legal writing (including legal practitioners, law teachers and law students). Lower-court judges required to write judgments should find the book valuable; and judges at all levels should find the additional chapter on ex tempore judgments of use.
Legal Writing in Plain English, Third Edition
Author: Bryan A. Garner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2023-09-06
Total Pages: 389
ISBN-13: 0226816559
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe leading guide to clear writing!--StartFragment --—and clear thinking!--StartFragment --—in the legal profession for more than two decades, now newly updated. Admirably clear, concise, down-to-earth, and powerful—all too often, legal writing embodies none of these qualities. Its reputation for obscurity and needless legalese is widespread. Since 2001, Bryan A. Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English has helped address this problem by providing lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. Now the leading guide to clear writing in the field, this indispensable volume encourages legal writers to challenge conventions and offers valuable insights into the writing process: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. Accessible and witty, Legal Writing in Plain English draws on real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching experience. Trenchant advice covers all types of legal materials, from analytical and persuasive writing to legal drafting, and the book’s principles are reinforced by sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section. For this third edition, Garner has retained the structure of the previous versions, with updates and new material throughout. There are new sections on making your writing vivid and concrete and on using graphics to enhance your argument. The coverage and examples of key topics such as achieving parallelism, avoiding legalese, writing effective openers and summaries, and weaving quotations into your text have also been expanded. And the sample legal documents and exercises have been updated, while newly added checklists provide quick summaries of each section. Altogether, this new edition will be the most useful yet for legal professionals and students seeking to improve their prose.
