The Lawyer’s Style Guide

The Lawyer’s Style Guide
Author: Peter Butt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 968
Release: 2021-02-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509936262

Clarity and precision in legal writing are essential skills in the practice and study of law. This book offers a straightforward, practical guide to effective legal style from a world-leading expert. The book is thoughtfully structured to explain the elements of good legal writing and its most effective use. It catalogues all aspects of legal style, topic by topic, phrase by phrase, usage by usage. It scrutinises them all, suggesting improvements. Its 'dictionary' arrangement makes it easy to navigate. Topics range as widely as ambiguity, definitions, provisos, recitals, simplified outlines, terms of art, tone, and the various principles of legal interpretation. Words and phrases deal with legal expressions that non-lawyers find opaque and obscure. The purpose is to show that you can usually substitute a plain-English equivalent. Usage entries include matters such as abbreviations, acronyms, active and passive voice, brackets, bullet points, citation methods, cross-referencing, deeds, fonts, document design, footnotes, gender-neutral language, numbering systems, plain language, punctuation, the use of Latin, structures for legal advices and documents, and techniques for editing and proofreading. With an emphasis on technical effectiveness and understanding, the book is required reading for all those engaged in the practice and study of law.

Modern Legal Drafting

Modern Legal Drafting
Author: Peter Butt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2006-10-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781139459402

In the second edition of this highly regarded text, the authors show how and why traditional legal language has developed the peculiar characteristics that make legal documents inaccessible to the end users. Incorporating recent research and case law, the book provides a critical examination of case law and the rules of interpretation. Detailed case studies illustrate how obtuse or outdated words, phrases and concepts can be rewritten, reworked or removed altogether. Particularly useful is the step-by-step guide to drafting in the modern style, using examples from four types of common legal documents: leases, company constitutions, wills and conveyances. Readers will gain an appreciation of the historical influences on drafting practice and the use of legal terminology. They will learn about the current moves to reform legal language, and receive clear instruction on how to make their writing clearer and their legal documents more useful.

Legal Usage

Legal Usage
Author: Peter Butt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 700
Release: 2018
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780409341461

The Lawyer's Essential Guide to Writing

The Lawyer's Essential Guide to Writing
Author: Marie P. Buckley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781616329655

The Lawyer's Essential Guide to Writing is a readable, concrete guide to contemporary legal writing. Based on Marie Buckley's years of experience coaching lawyers, this book provides a systematic approach to all forms of written communication, from memoranda and briefs to e-mail and blogs. The book sets forth three principles for powerful writing and shows how to apply those principles to develop a clean and confident style.

Guide to Legal Writing Style

Guide to Legal Writing Style
Author: Terri LeClercq
Publisher: Aspen Publishers
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2000
Genre: Law
ISBN:

Helps law students gain essential skills needed to advance from acceptable to exceptional writing, focusing on organization, sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, and formatting. Includes exercises and reviews for self or group testing. This second edition includes a new chapter on formattin

The Redbook

The Redbook
Author: Bryan A. Garner
Publisher: West Academic Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006
Genre: Citation of legal authorities
ISBN: 9780314168917

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the essential rules of legal writing. Unlike most style or grammar guides, it focuses on the special needs of legal writers, answering a wide spectrum of questions about grammar and style -- both rules and exceptions. It also gives detailed, authoritative advice on punctuation, capitalization, spelling, footnotes, and citations, with illustrations in legal context. Designed for law students, law professors, practicing lawyers, and judges, the work emphasizes the ways in which legal writing differs from other styles of technical writing. Its how-to sections deal with editing and proofreading, numbers and symbols, and overall document design. Features: * Cautions on use of 500 stuffy phrases and needless legalisms, along with their everyday English translations * Details rules for 800 words with required prepositions in certain contexts * Explains the correct usage of more than 1,000 words that are often troublesome to legal writers * Gives tips on preparing briefs and other court documents, opinion letters and demand letters, research memos, and contracts * Provides model documents of all types of legal documents and pleadings Reviews 200 terms of art that take on new meanings in legal contexts

The Solicitor General's Style Guide

The Solicitor General's Style Guide
Author: United States Department Of Justice Offi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2013-11
Genre: Legal authorities
ISBN: 9780991116300

Available to the public for the first time, "The Solicitor General's Style Guide" consists of three manuals used by the United States Office of the Solicitor General in preparing briefs to be filed in the Supreme Court of the United States: Office of the Solicitor General Citation Manual, Office of the Solicitor General Supplement to the Supreme Court Rules, and Office of the Solicitor General Writing Preferences. Supreme Court Justice Scalia and legal writing guru Bryan Garner have extolled the Solicitor General's briefs as models for other lawyers to follow. Now the citation and style secrets behind those briefs are available to lawyers and fans of the Solicitor General and the Supreme Court. In "The Solicitor General's Style Guide" you will learn gems like: What term did Solicitor General Charles Fried consider a "barbarism," ordering its "total extirpation" from the Solicitor General's briefs? What punctuation does the Office consider "ugly"? How does the Solicitor General decide whether to form the possessive of a word ending in "s" by adding just an apostrophe or an apostrophe "s"? When does the Solicitor General use ibid. instead of id.? And much more "The Solicitor General's Style Guide "cannot help you write like the Solicitor General, but now you can cite like the Solicitor General Praise for The Solicitor General's Style Guide: "As U2 might say, Jack Metzler's version of the Solicitor General's Style Guide is even better than the real thing. It is, in essence, a Bluebook for Supreme Court practitioners, touching all things style and citation as they relate to briefs filed at the Court - tremendously useful for the lawyers who practice there." - Tom Goldstein, Supreme Court expert and publisher of SCOTUSblog. "No wonder the writing standards of the Solicitor General's office are held in such high regard The Solicitor General is the only Justice Department official required by statute to be "learned in the law." This style manual shows how seriously the holders of that office take that responsibility. Forget the Bluebook - the Solicitor General's common-sense rules of punctuation, citation, capitalization, and italicization are now public, and all lawyers need to pay heed." - Tony Mauro, Supreme Court correspondent of The National Law Journal, has covered the Supreme Court for 33 years.