Legal Writing Style
Authors:
Gidi, Antonio / Weihofen, Henry
Edition:
3rd
Copyright Date:
2018
18 chapters
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Preface 9 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The first edition of this book was published in 1961, during the pre-history of modern legal writing. A pioneering work, well ahead of its time, it shaped the style of generations of lawyers and law students. A second edition, lightly updated, was published in 1980 at the dawn of the legal writing movement.
- May this renewed edition of Weihofen’s classic continue to guide generations of law students and professionals as they craft their own legal writing style.
- As you cultivate an appreciation for style, you will learn to write deliberately instead of by accident. Only then can you exercise control over your message: you will say what you mean and mean what you say. Empowered by an understanding of the consequences of your stylistic choices, you will find your own voice.
- This book addresses the key principles of writing, principles that have been debated for centuries. They are not immutable rules, but flexible, complementary, and conflicting guidelines that depend on context, objective, and, ultimately, your own taste and judgment. Take all these principles into consideration and you may write effectively; follow them blindly and your style will become formulaic.
- The book contains citations ranging from ancient Greek rhetoricians to 21st century writers; from English, German, and French stylists of previous centuries to contemporary American lawyers. Their insights show that many principles of good writing are independent of time, language, and culture. Let the masters inspire you to nurture your style.
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Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 34 results (showing 5 best matches)
- But what is a natural writing style? All writing is artificial in the sense that it is something one must learn (and legal writing is
- Sometimes the lawyer’s audience is not a legal professional. A letter to a doctor has a different audience than the one addressed to a person with limited education and should be written accordingly. Language appropriate for a corporate mortgage is not appropriate for addressing a jury. A contract, although usually written for only two lay people, must be drafted with a further audience in mind—lawyers and ultimately judges who may have to interpret it. Because it is difficult to develop a variety of styles, a lawyer may mistakenly write a letter to a client as though drafting
- It is practice, then, that improves writing style. You learn by doing, not by reading advice on how to do it. A writing style manual can be helpful, just as a book on swimming can help you learn to swim. But the advice that you get from a writing style manual does not become meaningful until you put it into practice.
- The ideal style is one that the reader will notice the least. “The greatest possible mint of style,” said Nathaniel Hawthorne, “is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.”
- The most persuasive writing is sincere writing—writing that most naturally reflects the personality, the spirit, and the feelings of the writer. As Buffon famously put it, “the style is the man himself.”
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Chapter 7. ORGANIZATION 116 results (showing 5 best matches)
- William Strunk, Jr. & E. B. White, The Elements of Style 15–17 (1979); Anne Enquist, Laurel Oates & Jeremy Francis, Just Writing: Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer 29 (2017).
- William Strunk, Jr. & E. B. White, The Elements of Style 15 (1979); William Zinsser, On Writing Well 80 (2016); Bryan A. Garner, Legal Writing in Plain English 81 (2013).
- See R.M. Eastman, Style 158 (1970) and James C. Raymond, Legal Writing: An Obstruction to Justice, 30 Ala. L. Rev. 1 (1978).
- Anne Enquist, Laurel Oates & Jeremy Francis, Just Writing. Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer 36 (2017).
- Anne Enquist, Laurel Oates & Jeremy Francis, Just Writing: Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer 50–51 (2017).
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Chapter 6. FORCEFULNESS 59 results (showing 5 best matches)
- We have also said that nominalization makes for an overstuffed, pretentious style
- The subject of most legal writing is complex and demands a reader’s concentrated attention. But readers tire and stop paying attention. Writing thus becomes a psychological campaign, an exercise in holding the reader’s interest. The writer must continually spur the reader on, now tickling his fancy with a neat turn of phrase, now stirring or shocking him with a moving or vivid word, constantly stimulating him to think more keenly, see more clearly, or feel more strongly. A vigorous style is particularly important for lawyers, who need to make the impact on the reader strong and indelible.
- We can all animate our writing style if we consistently cut down nominalization, use strong action verbs and concrete nouns, and prefer the affirmative over the negative and the active over the passive.
- You will strengthen your writing style if you consistently prefer the active voice over the passive.
- Avoiding clichés is not an absolute rule—sparingly used, they communicate your idea simply, effectively, and powerfully. But do not use them unconsciously. Thoughtless writers flood their writing with clichés, producing a lazy, unoriginal, weak style, when they could have expressed themselves in a fresh way.
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Chapter 2. PRECISION 93 results (showing 5 best matches)
- because the context would disambiguate the sentence. They claim that examples of ambiguity in published writing are rare.
- Contemporary legal writing style, therefore, avoids male-centric language.
- Anne Enquist, Laurel Oates & Jeremy Francis, Just Writing: Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer 91 (2017).
- can do a lot to help take the stuffiness out of legal writing style, especially to avoid legalisms like
- This last approach is used in this book. It should be used in combination with all other available methods, and reserved to secondary statements, particularly those that have little chance of being quoted by another writer. If well done, the reader will not notice. This method, however, is not available for professional legal writing style; it is only useful in long, book-length documents, where you will face the issue dozens of times.
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Chapter 3. CONCISENESS 96 results (showing 5 best matches)
- These wheezy expressions are time-and-paper-devouring verbosities. They are rarely used in conversation—that alone should make them suspect. Law students may feel impelled to use them because they are impressed with the formality of legal writing. “I am writing a legal opinion,” they think, “so I must sound like a lawyer.” But a lawyer is not required to use a stuffy tone, and legal writing need not be padded with windy words. The student should learn to distinguish a style that is dignified and formal from one that is overstuffed and flabby.
- Id. at xii, 83. See also Joseph M. Williams, Style. Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace vi (1997) (“The serious part of writing is rewriting.”).
- Even wordiness may serve a purpose: “readers don’t like flab, but neither do they like a style so terse that it’s all gristle and bone.”
- We all tend to use unnecessary words. When you read your writing looking for flab, you will probably be astonished to find how many words would never be missed. “Good writing,” said Ernest Hemingway, “is writing wherein you can’t remove one word without changing the meaning.”
- “Lawyers are wordy,” wrote David Mellinkoff, “it takes them a long time to get to the point.”
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Chapter 5. CLARITY 58 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Legal writing frequently calls for complex sentences and qualifying phrases. Adhering to normal sentence order helps make them clearer and is not likely to oversimplify your style: “[l]egal readers appreciate appropriate variety, but they do not appreciate variety at the expense of clarity.”
- In legal writing style, consistency is key to obtaining clarity and precision.
- Joseph M. Williams & Joseph Bizup, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace 196 (2014). See also James C. Raymond, Writing (Is an Unnatural Act) (1980).
- Careless writers caught composing ambiguous sentences may become defensive, arguing that the meaning is clear in context and that any criticism is unfair. Context may disambiguate many ambiguous sentences, but writing an inadvertently ambiguous sentence hoping it will be understood in context is not the hallmark of a superior writing style. “You know what I meant” is a last resort argument: it is unlikely to persuade the audience, repair your credibility, or win the case.
- As quoted in George William Erskine Russell, Collections and Recollections 136 (1898) (“People think I can teach them a style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style”). Arthur Schopenhauer had said something similar 35 years before, but it was Arnold’s quote that became famous in the United States. Schopenhauer said, “The first rule . . . for a good style is that the author should have something to say; nay, this is in itself almost all that is necessary.” On style [1851], in Lane Cooper (ed.), The Art of the Writer 223 (1952).
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Appendix. FURTHER READINGS 19 results (showing 5 best matches)
- This book offers an introductory approach to legal writing style. A superb writer, like any artist, is born, not made. Whatever expertise you may acquire will likely come from reading good prose and practicing composition. Extensively.
- Legal Writing Style
- Anne Enquist, Laurel Oates & Jeremy Francis, Just Writing: Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer
- Although you will not learn to write good prose merely by reading books on style, they can help you reach your finest form. As you gain awareness, you will learn to identify and avoid bad practices and adopt good ones. If you care about your writing—and you should—read several books on style. As you absorb their advice, note which lessons resonate with you, so you can find your own voice. Below are some that even Menken would endorse.
- With precious few exceptions, all the books on style in English are by writers quite unable to write
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Title Page 1 result
Acknowledgments 3 results
- I also acknowledge the many students, practitioners, and scholars who trusted me with their writings over the past two decades. Their reactions to my suggestions helped me forge my own theories on legal writing style.
- When I sent an early version to Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., he was 87 years old, in the last year of his life. Within a few weeks, he mailed me a bound copy with hundreds of handwritten suggestions that made my writing sharper, more modern, and more vigorous. Age and disease might have taken a toll on his body, but not on his mind. He was a superb legal stylist, a friend, and a mentor; he refined my thinking and my writing. I miss him profoundly.
- Finally, I thank my family, without whom I would have had more time to write a better book. But then I’d have no one to tickle.
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Chapter 8. A TOUCH OF ELOQUENCE 42 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Literary taste takes time to develop. One learns to appreciate good writing much as one comes to appreciate good music, by hearing much of it. Even without conscious effort, we adopt the style of what we read. With deliberate application, you can do more than emulate good style: you can find your own voice.
- In antithetical statements, as in writing generally, the more concise wording is more vigorous; separating the contrasting ideas by punctuation alone (comma, semi-colon or colon) is usually stronger than using words such as
- Parallel construction does much more than create a pleasing writing style; it creates conciseness, clarity, and consistency:
- As is true of other arts, good writing is not acquired by mechanical application of rules. “[T]he essence of a sound style,” said H. L. Menken, “is that it cannot be reduced to rules.”
- Indeed, “[t]here is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rule by which the young writer may shape his course.”
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Chapter 4. SIMPLICITY 80 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Yet, as Ernest Weekley said, “[t]he key to an effective style . . . is simplicity. Most of the bad writing that prevails today is due to the attempt to write ‘well.’ ”
- We write to make spoken words permanent. No matter how far the written text may depart from speech, it still maintains a voice.
- In urging lawyers not to sound pompous, we sometimes suggest that they would develop a more natural style if they would write as they talk. Within limits, you should follow this advice.
- A simple writing style is achieved the same way a dancer finally comes to do a difficult step with apparent ease—by rigorous practice.
- Legal language is known for its pedantry and mystification, and law students assume that legal writing is characterized by big, fancy words. There is an element of soundness in the notion. Legal writing is formal writing and should avoid colloquialisms and slang. But do not confuse formal with stuffy: a lawyer need not shun simple, everyday words and look for pompous polysyllables. Instead, “only use words that you’re certain your reader will know and will understand without conscious thought.”
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Chapter 9. CONCLUSION 13 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Fine writing is generally the effect of spontaneous thoughts and a labored style
- But no one should expect to attain perfection in the first draft—the key to good writing is rewriting. When you reread your early drafts for style, you will find intensifying adverbs you put there to add force that now sound exaggerated. You will find weak nouns qualified by one or more adjectives; if you think, or consult a thesaurus, you will find a single noun that will do the job by itself, and do it more pungently. You will find loose, unharnessed sentences that you can rearrange and tighten.
- A hasty, careless, bad style shows an outrageous lack of regard for the reader, who then rightly punishes it by refusing to read the book
- One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness
- On style [1851], in Lane Cooper (ed.), The Art of the Writer 232 (1952).
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Index 13 results (showing 5 best matches)
Table of Contents 3 results
Copyright Page 1 result
- Publication Date: March 28th, 2018
- ISBN: 9781634592963
- Subject: Legal Writing
- Series: Hornbooks
- Type: Hornbook Treatises
- Description: Legal Writing Style promotes the art of good writing by teaching students and practitioners the tools to make their prose clear, precise, simple, and forceful. With examples of what works and what doesn’t, this short but comprehensive treatise provides an invaluable resource for recasting writing for maximum impact and ultimate success.
