Effective legal writing communicates. Ineffective legal writing obfuscates.
Effective legal writing is accurate, brief, and concise. Legal reasoning, research, and writing are critical, practice-oriented skills used everyday by attorneys, judges, clerks, and paralegals. Indeed, most communication between attorneys and judges occurs in memos, orders, and briefs, not in oral argument. Unfortunately, most legal writing is overly verbose, unfocused, and therefore ineffectively communicates.
This blog features information and resources about effective legal writing both in legal education and in law practice.
What is Legal Writing?
Non-lawyers may be wondering what is so special and different about legal writing from “regular” or non-legal writing. I like this overview found on the Cornell Law School’s website here. Cornell’s overview breaks legal writing into two core types. The first type of legal writing requires a balanced analysis of a legal issue (also known as objective or predictive writing). This type of writing is found in client letters and memoranda between attorneys. The second type of legal writing is called persuasive writing, where the attorney attempts to persuade the audience (usually a judge) why the law supports the attorney’s position.
Both types of legal writing involve accurately stating the relevant legal issue, presenting the controlling rules of law, and applying the law to the factual situation. Good legal writing, both objective and persuasive, makes complex information clear and easy to grasp.