Legal Writing

Here are my favorite tips for persuasive legal writing that does not cross the line into unprofessional conclusory argumentativeness.

Be sure you use the correct ADR terms with clients, judges and opponents to avoid misunderstandings.

Our legal writing skills series continues with some commonly interchanged words that have acquired common (mis)usage in our writing.

Take advantage of Find and Replace as part of the last once-over for that important letter, contract or brief.

Using jargon can alienate outsiders, including judges. But is there ever a good reason to use it?

Parties frequently use terms incorrectly, and that leads to miscommunication.

The bottom line is that “coequal” means “equal.”

To avoid putting the proverbial keyboard in your mouth, do not use words or phrases until you are 100 percent certain of the meaning.

No, we don't mean your words go into the garbage. A tipsy vocabulary may enrich your communications. In the right case, soused language can be spot-on.

Now lawyers use every term they can think of because some court somewhere once said the language in the contract didn’t cover the dispute. Sometimes that’s a good reason, but often it is not. Rather than a considered approach, most lawyers start ...