The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well

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Description
For more than thirty years, we have been studying, writing about, and talking to people about the problems lawyers have with writing. Our concern led us to write the first edition of this book more than a quarter- century ago. Between October 1987 and June 1988, we asked 650 people familiar with legal writing-practicing lawyers, judges, professors, writing instructors, and journalists who report on legal topics-what bothered them most about the way lawyers write. The answers from three hundred of those respondents inform a portion of this book.
Fifteen years later, we updated the book, and now, after another dozen years, we have revised it again, reflecting on the revolutionary changes in the practice of law. When we first began writing about writing, desktop computers were just beginning to find their way into lawyers' offices, but probably few lawyers used them regularly or proficiently. (Indeed, lawyers at some firms told us then that they were forbidden to touch a computer; managing partners in those days viewed the "word processor” as a tool for secretaries and typists, not professionals.)
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Table of Contents
PART I WHY LAWYERS WRITE POORLY
1 Does Bad Writing Really Matter?
2 Don't Make It Like It Was
PART II THE PRACTICE OF WRITING
3. Ten Steps to Writing It Down
4 Of Dawdlers and Scrawlers, Pacers and Plungers: Getting Started and Overcoming Blocks
5 The Technology of Getting It Down:
From Quill Pens to Computers
6 Lawyers as Publishers: Words Are Your Product
PART III GETTING TO THE POINT
7 Writing Persuasively for Your Audience: Tell Your Audience the Point
8 Writing the Lead
PART IV REVISING FOR CLARITY AND LUSTER
9 Form, Structure, and Organization
10 Wrong Words, Long Sentences, and Other Mister Meaners
11 Revising Your Prose
12 Making Your Writing Memorable
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Author Details
Tom Goldstein is Professor of Journalism and Director of the Media Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jethro K. Lieberman is Martin Professor of Law Emeritus at New York Law School, where he was the director of its writing program for nearly a quarter century. He is the author or editor of more than twenty- five books, including The Litigious Society.