Legal Writing in Plain English, Second Edition: A Text with Exercises (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) *(Epub)
Admirably clear, concise, down-to-earth, and powerful—all too often, legal writing embodies none of these qualities. Its reputation for obscurity and needless legalese is widespread. Since 2001 Bryan A. Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English has helped address this problem by providing lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. Now the leading guide to clear writing in the field, this indispensable volume encourages legal writers to challenge conventions and offers valuable insights into the writing process that will appeal to other professionals: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. Accessible and witty, Legal Writing in Plain English draws on real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching experience. Trenchant advice covers all types of legal materials, from analytical and persuasive writing to legal drafting, and the book’s principles are reinforced by sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section. In this new edition, Garner preserves the successful structure of the original while adjusting the content to make it even more classroom-friendly. He includes case examples from the past decade and addresses the widespread use of legal documents in electronic formats. His book remains the standard guide for producing the jargon-free language that clients demand and courts reward. Read more
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Why Must Read Legal Writing in Plain English, Second Edition: A Text with Exercises (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)?
If you're looking for a text to substitute for a Pre-Law English course, this might be its best application. If you're a professor or English instructor looking for a great text to teach Pre-Law English, it's worth a look. It could also be good for someone already in the law field who has been writing "Legalese" and needs to learn a better way. This book can teach how to distill the core of a matter and how to change unclear thought into something coherent and succinct. Amazon's rating system is, unfortunately, about how well I liked it, not how useful it might be to others. To be fair (which is why I gave it a 3 instead of a 2), I have an MA in English Rhetoric and have spent my life in the writing/publishing world, so it does not fit my needs. I'm new to the field of law and hoped it would teach me the required elements of various briefs/documents. Out of a 240 page book, about 50 pages is devoted to what I sought (Appendix B - Four Model Documents on drafting an Appellate Brief, Motion, Contract, and a Research Memo). Appendix A is "How to Punctuate" which, ostensibly, if you're over 30, you learned in school somewhere along the line. The remainder of a book is simply an advanced writing course with examples drawn from legal documents. A typical example would be that you are given a convoluted sentence which you then have to break into smaller, more succinct and understandable sentences. The advanced form of that same exercise is a convoluted paragraph in which you have to figure out what is being said and rewrite it to make it more clear and coherent. Other exercises involve interviewing lawyers and judges to find out their preferences in what they like to read as far as legal documents are concerned. The book also assumes you have access to a law library and lots of time to research. One example is: "Find a judicial opinion that takes several paragraphs before getting to the point." Be more diligent than I was -- take a look at the Table of Contents from the "Look Inside" link, and even download a sample of it to your Kindle before purchasing. Apparently I simply looked at the reviews.
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