ARTICLES

Good Writers Ignore Em Dash Critics

The Reason Lawyers Procrastinate About Writing Projects (Or, When It’s OK to Be Stupid)

Get With the Program! Decoding Legal Technology Abbreviations

This Is Happening More Often Than You Realize: More Court Opinions That Rely on Grammar

Bemused Writers Do Not Amuse Me

Pass Through the Phantom Tollbooth of Case Management

Supersede or Supercede? Why Do You Keep Misspelling This Word?

Grammar Changes the Case Outcome — Again

Don’t Be Afraid to Rely on Intuition

I Don’t Know What This Word Means: Is This Post Expansive or Extensive?

It’s the Word Most Often Used Incorrectly

A Less Common But Conspicuous Mistake: Who or Whom Came Up With This?

The Curse of Knowledge: Effective Communication When You Know Too Much

It’s National Grammar Day! Three SCOTUS Cases Where Grammar Made a Difference

Whereas, I Keep Telling Lawyers to Stop Writing Like This

January 18 Is National Thesaurus Day: Top Three Ways to Use Your Thesaurus

Eloquent Speakers: Make Every Word Important

Tactical vs. Strategic: Redundant or Contradictory?

It Is What It Is — Can You Plead That in Court?

The Best Lawyers Tell Good Stories: How to Punch Up Your Narrative

Nym Words: Sufferin’ Suffixes

Essential Lawyer Skills Needed for Success

Does This Writing Pass the AI Test?

Get Your Point Across With a Listicle

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid: New Documentary Reminds Us to Avoid Potentially Offensive Phrases

Not Paying Attention When We Told Lawyers to Be Concise?

Grammar Quiz: What’s Wrong With These Sentences?

Does ‘Full Stop’ Signal You Are Stopping Yourself or Others?

Upgrade Your Image: Your New Publicity Still

It’s National Grammar Day! 3 Ways to Celebrate

The $4.85 Million Comma

Public Speaking Tips: Introduce Yourself to Your Audience, Please!

Is AI Your New Thesaurus?

Innumeracy Strikes Again — and Again

The Articulated Pause: You Don’t Have to Make Noise While You Think

Can Lawyers Be Consistently Authentic?

Ditch the Zombie Nouns Starting This Halloween

The Practical Meaning of the Term ‘Law Practice’

Quiz: Anything Wrong With These Sentences?

Use Playtime to Improve Your Communication Skills: The Value of Smartphone Word Games

Specific Steps to Take If You Receive a Threat

Getting Your Adjectives in Proper Order (John Bercow Would Be Happy)

Emphatic Advice: Don’t Write Like a Flight Attendant

Make Me Love Your Podcast!

Three Tips for a New Level of Success in a Family-Owned Law Practice

Should You Use Personal Pronouns in Email Signatures?

Tax Time Is Budget Time

Give Yourself a Pat on the Back — and an Award

The Four Parts of Your Presentation

How Many Letters Are in the Alphabet? More Than You Think

A Thesaurus Is More Than a Word Processing Feature

Are You Making Your Employees Sick?

Navigating the Professional Holiday Party

How Long Is a Paragraph?

A Two-Word Phrase You Seldom Need

Holiday Season Already? Client Gifting Gets Harder

The Heyday of Grammar: You’re Not Hardcore Unless You Live Hardcore

Much Ado About Word Usage

Even In-House Counsel Need to Market

The Horrible and the Miserable: The Challenge to Keep Marketing

How Long Was That Quotation? Do’s and Don’ts of Using Quoted Material

Wikipedia: Anonymous Marketing

Protecting Yourself When Leaving the Firm

Fulsome Word Choice Advice

Accent on the Wrong Syll-ah-buhl?

Why Should You Be Grateful? How About More Clients?

How Euphemisms Improve Your Lawyering

Solve This Emoji:

Multiplicity: I Got It — There’s a Lot of Them

Mediation Vocabulary

Marketing Your Practice: The Courage to Make Rain

These Junk Phrases Could Undermine Your Credibility

Is Google Better Than a Dictionary?

Law Firm Viewpoint: The Best Interview Question and Answer

Practice Area Switcharoo: Become an Expert in Anything

Dictionary Betrayal

Not an Insect, Not Your Relative: The Grammatical Antecedent

Put the Important Stuff First

Marketing Tips: When You Don’t Know What to Write

Online Marketing: Try These 3 Techniques to Tempt Targets

Turn Leisure Reading into Marketing Gold

Has Texting Triumphed?

Don’t Say This to a Survivor

Recycle Your Bottles, Cans and Work Product

Ditch These Super Trendy Hacks

Should You Be a Thought Leader? The Answer May Surprise You

Another Thing Spell-check Doesn’t Know

The Realities of Legal Life: Pragmatic Advice to Boost Your Career

Aberrant Apostrophes

Why Travel Makes You a Better Lawyer

Put Some Color Into Your Vocabulary

Don’t Overlook This Pandemic Marketing Hack

Lawyers Can Learn This From Screenwriters

Three Things to Do When There’s Not Enough Work

Words in Danger

The Prosody Pitfall

Terms for Not Working and Not Earning Money

Parallel Persuasion

Attorney or Lawyer — Which Am I?

With, Not Who, for Things; Who, Not That, for People

Your Livelihood Depends on Persuasive Writing

Avoiding Dining Table Faux Pas

Classically Clueless

OK, So You’ve Got a Thesaurus

You Wouldn’t Put up With “Yeah, No” From a Witness — Why Do You Say It?

Case Resolution Vocabulary

You Say You Speak English? Are You Sure?

Don’t Say This! You Follow?

Use Find and Replace to Improve Your Writing

To Jargon or Not to Jargon

Litigation Terms Parties Get Wrong: ‘We’ll Go to Court to Settle This!’

‘Coequal’: Is That a Word?

Explicit in This Post: How to Deal With Implicit Terms

How to Write an Obituary — Yes, You Should Know This

Numerical References You May Not Know

When Your Vocabulary Gets Wasted

Talking About Choices: Inoffensive Is Better Than Clever

Why Lawyers Are Redundant: History Is Destiny

Making and Using Too Many Words

Five Usage Errors — With Celebrities

Do Your Gestures Belie Your Words?

Profanity in the Legal Workplace

You Lost Me Right From the Start: Avoiding Communication Turn-offs

Five Tax Benefits to Working From a Home Office

The Death of Capitalization

You Can Conduct an Internet Search, But Should You Google?

Don’t Be Tricked by These False Friends

Contronyms: Context Controls Comprehension

How Charity Can Play a Role in Your Marketing Plan

Are You Woke to Cultural Marketing?

Why Superlatives May Not Be So Super

Qualifiers Do Not Increase Quality

You Can’t Practice Law Without Math

Invisible Syllables

Elegant Insults

About Your Love Affair with the Hyphen

Attorneys, Don’t Bury the Lede

To Comma, Or Not to Comma: You May Be Getting It Wrong

What Broadway’s Hamilton Teaches about Legal Interpretation

Ryan Lochte’s Vocabulary Lesson for All of Us

If You Are Reading This … Oh, Wait, You Are!

Talk Like You Drive — With Care

To Infinitive and Beyond

Blog Posts: Are You Clickable?

A Politically Incorrect Marketing Tip

Don’t Speak Like a Patronizing ‘Parent’

What? You Want I Should Stop Using Yiddish?

Five Words You’re Probably Saying Wrong

How to Chat at Networking Events

Lay the Groundwork for Effective Personal Networking

Hands-on Help for the Disorganized Desk

How to Work With a Ghost (Writer)

Specificity Avoids Calendar Calamities

Stop Using Squishy Language

Five Sources for Professional Help in a Pinch

This Post Comprises Further Help for Your Systemic Writing Errors

It Takes Two: Competence and Confidence

How to Clean Up Your Writing

Five Opportunities to Turn Gossip into Money

The Big Three Internet Marketing Activities for Lawyers

Protect Your Law Firm from Loss Exposure

A Roman Walks Into a Bar

Weak Sentence Starters You Use All the Time

Effecting Misuse Can Affect the Effectiveness of Your Writing: Sound-Alikes

Windyfoggery and Other Writing Tips from the Master

The 1-2 Punch to Fix What’s Wrong with Email

Three Tips for Better Client Status Reports

Avoid Clichés? As If!

Lawyers: Why Tweet?

Ditch the Pronoun and Just Call Your Darlin’ “Darlin’”

Cure Bad Speech Habits: “It’s, Like, Y’know, Amazing!”

Why a TED Talk Is Like a Chicago Hot Dog

Happy National Grammar Day! Lawyers’ Top Three Grammar Goof-ups

A Lawyer’s Business Card To-Do List

Where Are You?

Sloppy Writing Sucks!

Alphabet Soup: Create a List of Options Based on Target Audience

SWOT Analysis: Assess Your Marketing Position

Get Out of the Office and Connect with Your Next Client

How Is Your Image?

Money Management for Contingency Fees

Feature versus Benefit