12 Thursday May 2016
Posted in Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on Judges Quote Yoda.
Galactic Disputes: Judges Channel the Wisdom of Star Wars, by Anna Massoglia, Lawyerist.com©
Making legal jargon understandable to the general masses is a big job. Some more creative judges think outside of the box to get their point across through pop culture references. With all of the hype surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it should come as no surprise that Star Wars references are seeping into judicial opinions.
22 Wednesday Apr 2015
Posted in Abbreviations, Appellate Writing, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Editing, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Readability
≈ Comments Off on A Novel Approach To Circuit Court’s Word Limit Rule. If Only It Had Worked!
Squished-Together Words Don’t Count As One, Federal Circuit Says; Appeal Is Tossed, by Debra Cassen Weiss, ABA Journal (with hat tip to William P. Statsky!)
A litigant that squeezed multiple words together and resorted to abbreviations didn’t satisfy word limits in its briefs and won’t be able to pursue its appeal, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The appeals court tossed the patent appeal by Pi-Net International in an April 20 order (PDF). How Appealing links to the opinion and a story by Law360 (sub. req.), which dubbed the creative wording ‘a trick straight out of high school English class.’ . . .
* * *
On appeal, JPMorgan objected to Pi-Net’s first brief, saying it attempted to evade the 14,000 word limit by deleting spaces between various words and squeezing them together, according to the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit offered an example: One case citation consists of 14 words, but Pi-Net squeezed them together to make them into one word. . . .
27 Thursday Nov 2014
Posted in 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Appellate Law, Appellate Writing, Brief Writing, Editing, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, Legalese, Plain Language, Proofreading, Propositions and Headings, Readability, Statement of Facts, Summary of the Argument, Table of Authorities
≈ Comments Off on Appellate Legal Writing – This Is How You Do It.
Tags
A Writ In Time, Appellate Writing, Bridging the Gap Seminar, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, Free CLE Materials and Forms, Legal Writing, Louisiana Civil Appeals Blog, Moot Court, Raymond P. Ward, the (new) legal writer blog
Free La. Appellate CLE Materials, by Raymond P. Ward, Louisiana Civil Appeals Blog
Here’s something you don’t see everyday – a top-notch lawyer generously sharing everything juicy in his CLE presentation. I am a long-time follower of Mr. Ward’s blogs. I strongly recommend this blog, as well as his other blog, the [new] legal writer blog at http://raymondpward.typepad.com/newlegalwriter/.
Notice how the propositions further the appellate brief’s argument to the court. They are not simply “The Court Should Grant Summary Judgment to Plaintiff” or something equally bland. Likewise, the propositions are not more than one sentence.
The Statement of the Case is less than one page. The writer doesn’t bog the Court down with unnecessary facts. You can look, but you will not find even a whiff of legalese.
Please pay attention when you read the materials and each sample document (thank you for including them!). Notice that no words are wasted. There is a reason why.
Notice the word choice, the size of the sentences and paragraphs, and the crafting of the propositions and subheadings. The persuasive argument is easy to follow. The writer keeps the reader’s attention – an absolute must for anything you write.
Do you aspire to be a good writer? Write like this. -CCE
This morning [October 28, 2014], I presented an hour of CLE on appellate practice for the Louisiana State Bar Association’s ‘Bridging the Gap’ seminar, a program for newly minted lawyers who passed the February 2014 bar exam. For attendees and anyone else who may be interested, here are some supplemental materials used or discussed in the presentation:
- My written materials
- A PDF copy of my PowerPoint presentation
- My article A Writ in Time, 51 La. B.J. 338 (Feb.–Mar. 2004)
- Two entertaining and informative articles by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Ninth Circuit:
- In Praise of Moot Court—Not!, in which Judge Kozinski discusses the differences between law-school moot-court competitions and real-world appellate practice
- The Wrong Stuff, in which Judge Kozinski offers tips to help you lose your next appeal
For reasons discussed at the seminar and elsewhere, I recommend against over-reliance on forms. With that caution stated—and with no warranties—I offer some samples of pleadings and briefs, all in PDF:
14 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Appellate Writing, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, Readability
≈ Comments Off on Improve Your Brief With The Curse of Knowledge Test.
Tags
Appellate Writing, Brief Writing, Bryan Garner, Legal Writing, Mark Herrmann, Raymond Ward, Steven Pinker, the (new) legal writer blog
The Curse Of Knowledge: The Root Of Incomprehensible Writing, by Raymond P. Ward, the [new] legal writer blog
Bryan Garner tells participants in his seminars that good writing makes the reader feel smart, while bad writing makes the reader feel stupid. What is the root of this kind of bad writing? Mark Herrmann has an idea about that, drawn from cognitive scientist Steven Pinker: we think that our readers already know what we are trying to tell them. Pinker calls this phenomenon ‘the curse of knowledge.’
So what is the cure for this affliction? Herrmann recommends empathy for the reader. ‘Put yourself in the reader’s state of ignorance,’ he counsels, “and write for that audience.’ Pinker suggests testing your draft on people who don’t already know what you’re trying to tell them:
A better way to exorcise the curse of knowledge is to close the loop, as the engineers say, and get a feedback signal from the world of readers—that is, show a draft to some people who are similar to your intended audience and find out whether they can follow it. Social psychologists have found that we are overconfident, sometimes to the point of delusion, about our ability to infer what other people think, even the people who are closest to us. Only when we ask those people do we discover that what’s obvious to us isn’t obvious to them.
Garner has a similar recommendation in The Winning Brief, at least for cases where the amount at stake is worth the expense: Convene a focus group of lawyers unfamiliar with the case to play the part of appellate judges by reading and reacting to your draft brief. This exercise has many benefits. One of them is to tell you whether the curse of knowledge has infected your brief.
19 Tuesday Aug 2014
Posted in Appellate Writing, Federal Judges, Judges, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on 2013 Judicial Writing Manual: A Pocket Guide For Judges.
Tags
Appellate Writing, Federal Judges, Federal Judicial Center, Judicial Writing Manual: A Pocket Guide for Judges (Second Edition), Legal Writing
Judicial Writing Manual: A Pocket Guide for Judges (Second Edition), Federal Judicial Center 2013 (with huge hat tip to William P. Statsky!)
Yesterday I posted a link to the First Edition of the Judicial Writing Manual. Twenty years after the First Edition, the Federal Judicial Center published this Second Edition. The goal of the Second Edition, like the First, is summed up in its Forward below. -CCE
Indeed, with so much of today’s writing embedded in the truncated protocols of social media and other “real time” forms of expression, the clarity and persuasive quality the authors of the first edition sought to teach are particularly important for judges’ writing. But the elements of good writing are remarkably constant, and we think that you will find the principles explained so thoughtfully in the first edition no less applicable today.
Jeremy D. Fogel, Director, Federal Judicial Center
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