Litigators write demand letters, prepare pleadings, motions, affidavits and declarations; organize trial presentations and compose appellate briefs. Transactional attorneys draft contracts and opinion letters and conduct business correspondence. Judges write opinions, dissents and concurrences. Law students and law clerks prepare case briefs, research memos and law review comments. And law professors organize course outlines, lesson plans, lectures and presentations; write articles, books and amicus briefs; and read, edit, correct and comment upon reams of student writing.
To do all this, we need dependable guides to current legal writing tone and style. We can benefit from suggestions on organization, logic, mechanics, usage and grammar, and tips on editing, proofreading and revision. Many of us may have our favorite handbooks, perhaps from college or law school. I liked “The Harbrace College Handbook” and “The Random House Handbook” for grammar and organization respectively in college and graduate school. Somewhere during that time, I read William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well,” and I have used his sample of editing from the chapter on “Simplicity” as a guide ever since. In my first law school writing class, our professor introduced us to “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell’s polemic on the misuse of language for political effect and public anesthesia. And Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” is a perennial favorite. My current favorite edition of that book is a version illustrated by Maira Kalman.
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