Perk Up Your Pens! Podcasts about Legal Writing

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I stumbled upon the Perk Up Your Pens series on legal writing earlier in the year and wish I had found it so much earlier.  Perk Up Your Pens is a fantastic series of legal writing podcasts by Rachel H. Smith and Shaina Feinberg and funded by an ALWD Teaching Grant.

These podcasts are entertaining and informative. While more geared for students in law school, these podcasts would be great tools for practicing attorneys to brush up on legal writing skills.  Each podcast focuses on a specific legal writing skill – writing like a lawyer, thesis and topic sentences, analogizing & distinguishing, proofreading, etc.  As Perks Up Your Pens tells you, “Happy IRACing!”

Legal Writing According to SCOTUS: Keep It Short & Simple and Skip the Legalese

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A recent story on NPR features insights on writing from the experts – the Justices of the United States Supreme Court.  In 2007, Bryan Garner interviewed each Justice about legal writing and advocacy.  Videos of the interviews can be seen here. Bryan Garner is a prominent legal writing scholar and author of The Redbook, A Dictionary of Legal Usage, and The Elements of Legal Style, as well as many others.

A link to a New York Times article based on the same series of interviews can be found here.