Lawyer Skills

Maybe this is the year you’ve committed to writing a blog. Perhaps you want to improve your client alerts or have just been given a monthly column. Talk about producing content under pressure! You’ve mastered the art of writing when you can ...

Lawyers are judged by the written words we put on websites and promotional materials and in our primary work products, be they briefs, contracts, leases, warrants or wills. In an analog world, work products were buried in client or court files ...

Congratulations. Your speech to the International Biometrics Association was a hit. A line of people are waiting to congratulate you and pay compliments. Many are simply being kind and expressing appreciation. However, at least some have a more ...

Some writers feel compelled to insert extra hyphens. Often they do it when they think they spot an adverb. Sometimes the offending word isn’t even functioning as an adverb; it’s part of a compound verb. Either way, put away the hyphen and step ...

“All professions are a conspiracy against the laity,” said George Bernard Shaw. In the legal profession, the best evidence of a conspiracy is the often impenetrable density and complexity of the law. It’s almost impossible for laypersons to ...

Mountain climbers are fastidious about the lines they trust their lives to, and scuba divers are constantly checking the tanks and regulators on which they depend. In the hectic world of practicing law — when one interruption is so often itself ...

Attorneys frequently ignore this basic journalism rule: Start with your strongest point. Your lead or “lede” should entice the reader to continue reading. The phrase “bury the lede” appears to be the only use of this alternate spelling. Perhaps ...

Most lawyers deal with the printed word all day long. They’ve been trained to take in and share knowledge as text. As a writer, it’s a stretch for me to even conceive of presenting information in a simple Excel chart. My bible starts, “In the ...

Meetings are the most expensive periods of time we spend together. Try, for example, adding up the loaded employee cost of a simple weekly status meeting. Your answer will make it immediately clear why meetings need to be highly productive to ...

Comma placement can cause a big effect in legal documents. (See "What Broadway's Hamilton Teaches About Legal Interpretation.") In ...