Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas isn’t a fan of big words in judicial opinions. The Atlantic recently quoted him as saying that he tries to write opinions so that non-lawyers can understand them:
[W]e write [opinions] so that they are accessible to regular people. That doesn’t mean that there’s no law in them. But there are simple ways to put important things in language that’s accessible. [T]he beauty, the genius is not to write a 5 cent idea in a ten dollar sentence. It’s to put a ten dollar idea in a 5 cent sentence.
Justice Thomas gives sensible advice in the abstract. But how, in practice, can lawyers use simple words to convey complex ideas? And is simplified legal writing more effective in persuading judges and satisfying clients?
To answer these questions, let’s first put the justice’s advice in historical context. Keep Reading ⇒
Randall’s how to succeed in law school is a nice broad post on exactly that, and you should read it.
But here’s my personal take on law school success. It’s the law school do-over, written as a kind of internal monologue, and most of it is framed in the negative: no, stop, and don’t. It’s not for all law students, but it’s what I would do if I had a law school do-over, and if you’re headed to law school or working your way through now, remember this:
Being a law student does not make you a Jedi.
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When I write this column, I try to focus on basic legal-writing principles. But there’s one controversial legal-writing subject that I can no longer avoid: how most legal writing could benefit from contractions.
It’s true that contractions aren’t generally accepted in legal writing. But it’s also true that they don’t deserve the label of uneducated vulgarisms, either.
So permit me a brief diversion to explore the controversy over contractions in legal writing. And at the end of the column, you can tell me what you think about the subject.
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A recent article on FindLaw.com called Five Ways Attorneys Waste Money claimed that attorneys can cut clients’ costs by avoiding needless motions, staffing cases leanly, focusing on the important issues, avoiding petty spats with the opposition, and being smart about when to settle.
But the article ignored the most important way attorneys can save money for their firms and clients: by learning how to write in plain English.
Most attorneys don’t believe that writing style matters. They might concede that writing in plain English can be aesthetically pleasing to the reader; but they also say that it’s not worth the time to learn how to do it because there’s no evidence that writing in plain English saves time or money.
But these attorneys ignore what legal-writing experts have taught — and what the empirical evidence has shown — for more than 50 years: that plain English saves time and money by increasing the ability of readers to understand and retain what they have read. Keep Reading ⇒
Law school success can be defined multiple ways, but getting good grades meets any definition of success.
Law school exams are unlike any other test you’ve taken, which means you need to meticulously prepare and execute your gameplan.
Here’s how to make it happen.
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If you are nearing the end of your college years and are considering law school, you should already know that there are not nearly enough law jobs to go around, and that the crushing debt burden most law grads take on can ruin your financial future. You may know law schools have developed a reputation for, um, not telling the truth. Finally, you may know that many lawyers are unhappy in their jobs, but feel trapped in law practice.
Despite all this, you may be considering law school anyway simply because your undergraduate education isn’t going to get you a job that excites you. You are considering taking the risk on law school because you don’t see any real alternatives. Or, perhaps you already know you can’t be happy unless you become a lawyer.
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This column isn’t about how to be a happy lawyer, which long ago became a vapid, tiresome topic. It’s about how to be successful, and expounds on an article called Six Rules for a Successful Legal Career that appeared in the Minnesota Lawyer in June 2010.
The author of that article—Richard Russeth—was satisfied to list his rules, and leave it at that. I pick up here where Russeth left off, and explain why following his six simple rules can help lawyers be successful. Keep Reading ⇒
