Legal Writing

Using jargon can alienate outsiders, including judges. But is there ever a good reason to use it?

Parties frequently use terms incorrectly, and that leads to miscommunication.

The bottom line is that “coequal” means “equal.”

To avoid putting the proverbial keyboard in your mouth, do not use words or phrases until you are 100 percent certain of the meaning.

No, we don't mean your words go into the garbage. A tipsy vocabulary may enrich your communications. In the right case, soused language can be spot-on.

Now lawyers use every term they can think of because some court somewhere once said the language in the contract didn’t cover the dispute. Sometimes that’s a good reason, but often it is not. Rather than a considered approach, most lawyers start ...

As a judge reviews your brief, they’re evaluating your argument and your professionalism. Consider the words of the Hon. Raymond M. Kethledge, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, in an article he wrote for the ABA.(1) “When I read a brief, the first ...

As you edit your work product, pay special attention to instances where a stronger verb could replace a verb and its direct object. Besides being less persuasive, weak verbs plus explanatory words lengthen your writing [not, “make it longer”].

You’re articulate, right? You appreciate and emulate good legal writing. So why do you turn off so many listeners and readers so soon?

It started with the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone. Capital letters appeared in places they never appeared before. Grammar rules call for capitalizing proper names, but now the correct reference to some brands calls for capitalizing in the middle ...