Good Writing != Legal Writing
I thought I knew how to write. I excelled in English classes. I got a liberal arts education. Professionally, I cranked out press releases and honed online copy every day. I wrote scripts for TV and blog posts* for my ego. I thought I knew what I was doing.
Unfortunately, I tried to apply those make-’em-think-this-is-exciting writing skills to law school. Big mistake.
First, good academic writing is not good legal writing. Second, good writing in every other context is not good legal writing. Legal writing makes you do things like label sentences that would otherwise flow just fine from one to the next with “First,” and “Second.” Legal writing wants you to use serial commas. Legal writing puts spaces between the periods in ellipses. Legal writing forces the writer to break down every possible leap of logic or twist of mystery you might hope to leave between the lines and forces them into cold, black text. Text interrupted by citations. Text with endless footnotes. Text in short sentences. Text that is redundant. Text that never varies in form. Text that is repetitious.
My current bitterness has everything nothing to do with the fact that I’m eyeballs-deep in a paper that already has 10 pages of single-spaced 10-point endnotes, all in sparkling Bluebook format. Right about now I just want to take IRAC and CRAC by the serifs and shake them until their silly, rigid bodies fall apart.
But I guess I’ll go work on my paper.
* Now that you know how much I love legal writing, you should check out my Lawyerist post on the pros and cons of writing for a law school journal.
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[...] Bergus lamented the fact that her writing skills gained from a liberal arts education and past professional stints do not exactly tran…, a frustration spurred by a recent endnotes-riddled paper. Over at Northwestern, Jeremy C. Wilson [...]
Pingback by Fridays From the Frontline » Clear Admit: Law School Admissions Blog — March 26, 2010 at 6:09 am
As much as I hate to admit it, I learned so much about GOOD legal writing from taking a seminar taught by Bryan Garner. His books on legal writing are incredibly helpful.
I totally agree with all of your points though, I’m an incredibly sloppy writer unless I’m intentional and legal writing is really tough for me.
Comment by Katie Luper — March 26, 2010 at 7:07 am
This is the unfortunate reality. Legal writing has to conform to the format, and that’s where a significant amount of the effort goes in. And the format in my opinion is different from typical good writing that you may find in a magazine or a book.
I think there’s a lot of room to improve what we consider legal writing. Mostly by making some understandable to the average person and using little words and sentences instead of big ones. On the other hand, I don’t think it makes sense to try something revolutionary here. (I could be wrong!)
Finally, at the appellate levels, I think there’s more room for creativity. But as someone who doesn’t do a ton of appellate work, I find that I don’t have a lot of room to use that creativity. It takes enough time just to crank out a clean looking document!
Comment by Venkat — March 26, 2010 at 7:17 am
Laura:
Well, there is a good deal of truth in what you say. I tell my seminar students that until you submit to it, legal writing is like forcing your feet into cruel shoes. Your toes go in impossible directions, the leather is stiff, and blisters appear everywhere. Legal writers just out of college must learn to submit to a superstructure that feels like a steel cage.
BUT, my best advice is to SUBMIT to it. The discipline isn’t going to give way to you, and will extract an incredibly high price from non-conformers.
And, what you will find is that eventually, your mind starts to think in IRAC formulations, and this is actually helpful to your practice. Spitting out a “come to Jesus” letter to an adversary, or a quick motion brief comes a good deal easier if your mind is always thinking (while at work, at least) in IRAC’s steel cage.
Gary Young
lawschoolninjabook.com
@lawschoolsensei
Comment by Gary Young — April 19, 2010 at 9:16 pm