Legal Writing – Why Shorter is Better.

08 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Editing, Legal Writing, Legalese, Readability

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Editing, Good Legal Writing Blog, Legal Writing, Rule of Short, Tiffany Johnson

Make it shorter … and shorter …, by Tiffany Johnson, Good Legal Writing Blog

https://goodlegalwriting.com/2011/02/11/make-it-shorter-and-shorter/

Regardless of whether, in your own opinion, you are a good writer, we can always improve. Here is an opportunity to polish your skills, take note of some bad habits, and hone your editing technique. -CCE

Here’s a good exercise to promote plain writing and dense writing. The object is to force you to purge your writing of any words that don’t work their butts off on your behalf. Take the following sentence and reduce it to as few words as humanly possible, without changing the meaning of the sentence. Shortest re-write wins a prize (respect)!

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Drafting The Order When You Win Your Motion? Beware Judicial Plagiarism!

19 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Civil Procedure, Legal Analysis, Legal Argument, Legal Writing, Motions

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Conclusions of Law, Drafting Orders, Findings of Fact, Good Legal Writing Blog, Legal Writing, Tiffany Johnson

Judicial Plagiarism, by Tiffany Johnson, Esq., Good Legal Writing Blog

http://goodlegalwriting.com/2015/03/08/judicial-plagiarism/#more-497

Have you ever argued a motion and had the court rule directly from the bench awarding you your requested relief? Didn’t you feel like the cool kid that day? Chest puffed out a little bit while you tried to restrain yourself out of respect for opposing counsel? And after winning your motion, did the court dump the task of drafting the order on you? Of course it did. No court has time to actually draft orders, right? That’s the least you could do after the court was gracious enough to rule in your favor. And even though it was another tick to your to-do list, you secretly welcomed that chore, because it meant you got to tweak the wording of the order precisely to your client’s advantage. Am I off here? No. You know this drill.

Well, hold your horses, cowboy. A recent case from Tennessee illustrates the possible dangers that may lie ahead up in them there hills. . . .

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It Could Happen To Anyone – But Justice Scalia Isn’t Just Anyone.

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Appellate Writing, Legal Writing, Proofreading

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Good Legal Writing, Justice Scalia, Legal Writing, Proofreading, Tiffany Johnson

Would You Like Salt on That Crow?, by Tiffany Johnson, Good Legal Writing

http://goodlegalwriting.com/2014/07/22/would-you-like-salt-on-that-crow/

So, the Honorable Justice Antonin Scalia — renown legal genius and reigning undisputed heavyweight champion of biting rhetorical snark — has now been reduced to making clandestine corrections to one of his famously condescending dissents. . . .

Supreme Court Judges Really Use Dictionaries To Determine Legislative Intent?

26 Monday May 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Appellate Judges, Appellate Law, Judges, Legal Analysis, Legal Dictionaries, Legal Writing, Legislative History, References, United States Supreme Court

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Adam Liptak, Good Legal Writing, Legal Dictionaries, Legal Writing, Legislative History, New York Times, Statutes, Tiffany Johnson, U.S. Supreme Court

Look It Up! Or Not…, by Tiffany Johnson, Good Legal Writing

http://goodlegalwriting.com/2014/04/14/look-it-up-or-not/

I always encourage my students to look up any words that confuse them as they read opinions. But this 2011 New York Times article cites a few scholars who don’t think it’s the most judicious practice to undertake from the bench. Check out this excerpt:

In May alone, the justices cited dictionaries in eight cases to determine what legislators had meant when they used words like ‘prevent,’ ‘delay’ and ‘report.’ Over the years, justices have looked up both perfectly ordinary words (‘now,’ ‘also,’ ‘any,’ ‘if’) and ones you might think they would know better than the next guy (‘attorney,’ ‘common law’).

All of this is, lexicographers say, sort of strange. . . .

What’s All the Fuss Over A Serial Comma?

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Bad Legal Writing, Legal Writing

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Good Legal Writing Blog, John Hightower, People v. Walsh, Seiral Comma, Susan Hankin, Tiffany Johnson, University of Maryland Law School

The Case for the Serial Comma, by Tiffany Johnson, Good Legal Writing Blog

http://goodlegalwriting.com/2011/09/13/the-case-for-the-serial-comma/

I am a HUGE fan of the serial comma in most instances (especially in legal writing). In this article, Susan Hankin at the University of Maryland Law School uses the reasoning of New York’s People v.Walsh to make a solid case for keeping that critical comma. . . .

Keeping It Short and Sweet.

15 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Criminal Law, Legal Writing, Texas Supreme Court

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Carving Doctrine, Ex parte McWilliams, Good Legal Writing, Presiding Judge Onion, Texas Supreme Court, Tiffany Johnson

Less is More, by Tiffany Johnson, Good Legal Writing

http://goodlegalwriting.com/2014/01/03/less-is-more/

I happened upon this interesting dissent in my research recently. If you can forgive the biting tone (note the judge’s befitting name), I think the minimalist technique is pretty effective. It’s not bogged down with preachy legalese. It doesn’t pontificate or soliloquize. It’s short and (not so) sweet. . . .