Synopses & Reviews
It matters how you write.
Lean, clear, crisp prose is no luxury for practitioners who face crowded court calendars, staggering mounds of paper, and overly long affidavits, memoranda, and briefs. Disorganized documents full of "legalese" burden courts and shortchange clients.
This concise, lively, and eminently practical volume demystifies legal writing, outlines the causes and consequences of bad writing, and prescribes straightforward, easy-to-apply remedies that will make your writing readable. Everything that most lawyers will need to improve their writing quickly and markedly is here.
Authoritative and unique among legal writing guides, the book draws on a nationwide survey conducted by the authors. In their responses, 300 lawyers, judges, professors, writing instructors, and legal journalists from all over the country provided insights into lawyers' writing habits. Throughout The Lawyer's Guide, authors Goldstein and Lieberman illustrate their points with instructive examples taken from these lawyers' daily practices.
Complete with a glossary that addresses lawyers' most common errors, this easy-to-use book is an invaluable tool for practicing lawyers and a sensible grounding for law students. It is a definitive guide to becoming a better writerand a better lawyer.
Synopsis
In this critically acclaimed book, Tom Goldstein and Jethro K. Lieberman demystify legal writing, outline the causes and consequences of poor writing, and prescribe easy-to-apply remedies to improve it. Reflecting changes in law practice over the past decade, this revised edition includes new sections around communicating digitally, getting to the point, and writing persuasively. It also provides an editing checklist, editing exercises with a suggested revision key, usage notes that address common errors, and reference works to further aid your writing. This straightforward guide is an invaluable tool for practicing lawyers and law students.
Synopsis
This eminently practical volume demystifies legal writing, outlines the causes and consequences of bad writing, and prescribes straightforward, easy-to-apply remedies that will make your writing readable. Complete with usage notes that address lawyers' most common errors, this well-organized book is both an invaluable tool for practicing lawyers and a sensible grounding for law students. This much-revised second edition contains a set of editing exercises (and a suggested revision key with explanations) to test your skill. This book is a definitive guide to becoming a better writerand#151;and a better lawyer.
Synopsis
"Should be in the office of every lawyer."and#151;William Safire,
New York Times Magazine"This advice is sensible and lucidly given, and what is more, the reason for it is explained, so that even a moderately eager reader need not simply memorize but can remember the principle and apply it where needed."and#151;Jacques Barzun, author of From Dawn to Decadence
Synopsis
This best-selling, eminently practical volume demystifies legal writing, outlines the causes and consequences of bad writing, and prescribes straightforward, easy-to-apply remedies that will make your writing readable. Usage notes address lawyersand#39; most common errors, and editing exercises (with a suggested revision key that includes detailed explanations) allow you to test your skills, making this an invaluable tool for practicing lawyers as well as a sensible grounding for law students. This much-revised third edition contains examples of lawyersandrsquo; original prose and provides a robust set of techniques that you can use to shorten, sharpen, and shape the words that constitute your livelihood.
New sections in this edition:
- Getting to the point
- Communicating digitally
- Writing persuasively
- Twenty-five common mistakes
and#160;
About the Author
Tom Goldstein is former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and author of Killing the Messenger: 100 Years of Media Criticism (1989) and The News at Any Cost: How Journalists Compromise Their Ethics to Shape the News (1985). Jethro K. Lieberman is Associate Dean, Professor of Law, and Director of the Writing Program at New York Law School, as well as Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He is the coauthor of The Lawyer's Craft: An Introduction to Legal Analysis, Writing, Research, and Advocacy (2002) and author of A Practical Companion to the Constitution: How the Supreme Court Has Ruled on Issues from Abortion to Zoning (California, 1999).
Table of Contents
Preface
Part I. Why Lawyers Write Poorly
1. Does Bad Writing Really Matter?
2. Donand#8217;t Make It Like It Was
Part 2. The Process of Writing
3. Ten Steps to Writing
4. Of Dawdlers and Scrawlers, Pacers, and Plungers: Getting Started and Overcoming Blocks
5. The Mechanics of Getting It Down: From Quill Pens to Computers
6. Lessons from a Writing Audit
7. Lawyers as Publishers: Words Are Their Product
Part 3. Managing Your Prose
8. Writing the Lead
9. Form, Structure, and Organization
10. Wrong Words, Long Sentences, and Other Mister Meaners
11. Revising Your Prose
12. Making Your Writing Memorable
Notes
Usage Notes
An Editing Checklist
Editing Exercises
Suggested Revisions to Editing Exercises
Reference Works
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index