Guthrie S Guide To Better Legal Writing

Guthrie's Guide to Better Legal Writing focuses on communicating more effectively in e-mail, letters, memos, blog posts, client updates, and social media, with some pointers on contractual drafting and written advocacy. The second edition incorporates significant new material based on reader queries.

Guthrie's Guide to Better Legal Writing won't solve all your problems, but it will help you make your prose clear, correct, and compelling. The focus is on communicating more effectively in e-mail, letters, memos, blog posts, client updates, and social media, but there are some pointers on contractual drafting and written advocacy as well.

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 writer—and a better lawyer.

Offers one hundred rules that every first year law student should live by “Dear Law Student: Here’s the truth. You belong here.” Law professor Andrew Ferguson and former student Jonathan Yusef Newton open with this statement of reassurance in The Law of Law School. As all former law students and current lawyers can attest, law school is disorienting, overwhelming, and difficult. Unlike other educational institutions, law school is not set up simply to teach a subject. Instead, the first year of law school is set up to teach a skill set and way of thinking, which you then apply to do the work of lawyering. What most first-year students don’t realize is that law school has a code, an unwritten rulebook of decisions and traditions that must be understood in order to succeed. The Law of Law School endeavors to distill this common wisdom into one hundred easily digestible rules. From self-care tips such as “Remove the Drama,” to studying tricks like “Prepare for Class like an Appellate Argument,” topics on exams, classroom expectations, outlining, case briefing, professors, and mental health are all broken down into the rules that form the hidden law of law school. If you don’t have a network of lawyers in your family and are unsure of what to expect, Ferguson and Newton offer a forthright guide to navigating the expectations, challenges, and secrets to first-year success. Jonathan Newton was himself such a non-traditional student and now shares his story as a pathway to a meaningful and positive law school experience. This book is perfect for the soon-to-be law school student or the current 1L and speaks to the growing number of first-generation law students in America.

This is not another tedious rulebook littered with unfounded gimmicks contrived at a faculty mixer. Here you will find relevant advice from an attorney who has been writing trial and appellate briefs on the frontlines for two decades. Amid the new material in this expanded edition, Mr. Bowlan subdues the oft dreaded summary judgment response. And the gloves come off when he addresses legal ethics in the Epilogue - "Welcome to the Dark Side" - a must-read for every law student who intends to become a practicing lawyer. What do Trolls, Curmudgeons and Yapping Chihuahuas have to do with legal writing? Open the cover and find out.

This concise paperback focuses on the nuances of legal writing style and provides novice legal writers with the skills they need to polish their writing. Guide to Legal Writing Style, Fourth Edition, intended as an ancillary to any basic legal writing text, expands what students learn in their first-year courses by providing additional techniques and style tips that will help make their writing more precise, readable and elegant. This highly regarded paperback, specifically directed at legal writers, offers crisp, pointed advice written in a personal and humorous style lucid organization that helps students find the information they need most, including practice with basic skills and helpful advice on organization, sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, and formatting an emphasis on legal ethics throughout, with most of the examples and exercises focusing on ethical issues a chapter on organization that compares and contrasts undergraduate terms and goals with those expected by a legal audience a guide that helps students guard against plagiarism short, end-of-chapter exercises, with the answers at the back of the book, that strengthen skills and provide opportunities for self-testing Special features in the Fourth Edition include: an updated interactive CD-ROM with multiple exercises to reinforce the materials in the book, which includes updated and expanded tests of basic skills and click-on answers and explanations a new chapter testing common errors in professional writing, with explanations as well as succinct answers new checklists that reinforce essential advice of each chapter

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 writer--and a better lawyer.

A Practical Guide to Legal Writing and Legal Method provides complete coverage and analysis with the clarity and precision that has made it a classic in the field. Discussion, examples, and practice exercises teach students how to apply the concepts of legal writing and legal method to a written analysis or oral argument. The text not only provides a complete foundation for classroom instruction, but also supports independent study and review. Graduates will want to keep this text within reach as they enter legal practice. New to the Seventh Edition: Restructured format to emphasize common themes Consolidated and streamlined chapters that are even more accessible to both professor and students Expanded appendix on email communications Professors and student will benefit from: Accessible introductions that outline and explain legal method Examples of both effective and ineffective approaches to all of the topics covered Focused exercises to develop and practice the skills addressed in each chapter In-depth instruction on reading and understanding both statutes and caselaw synthesizing cases and statutes applying the law to specific facts organizing and drafting a legal analysis the principles of objective writing for memoranda, client communications, and judicial opinion writing the principles of persuasive writing, including structuring an effective argument and writing for the court drafting traditional and shorter “summary of the law” memoranda drafting opinion letters drafting both trial and appellate court briefs Guidelines for using electronic communication for legal memoranda and correspondence—when it is appropriate, and strategies for effective communication in legal writing and practice Integrated treatment of ethics and professional conduct A sample case file in the appendices with memos in both traditional and email format, client letters, and trial and appellate court briefs