General Principles of Legal Writing
| Author | John Hollander |
| Pages | 61-85 |
general principles of legal writing
chapter three
General Principles of Legal
Writing
tool of communication. You have to know
yourself and know your audience; you have to summarize
your argument and express it in a manner the audience
will understand — these are the principles of legal writing.
Legal writing is dierent than oral advocacy. Writing
rarely occurs in real time, unlike its oral equivalent. One
disadvantage of writing is there is no immediate feed-
back — no interruptions, questions, remarks, or facial
expressions — to serve as cues for the writer. e writer
must anticipate how the reader will react; however, by
following the general principles, the writer will improve
the odds of persuading the reader.
is handbook has discussed project management
issues elsewhere, including how to create and frame the
work product. is section deals with broader issues.
What is your “voice”? Who is your audience? Why are
you writing? What do you have to say?
Law schools focus on analysis. Issues, analysis. Day
in, day out. Analysis sets the table for what the lawyer
has to say. Unfortunately, there is little in the law school
curriculum that teaches the art of written persuasion. e
general principles described here do not appear in a law
school syllabus.
Dispassionate and balanced analysis may be the last
thing the client wants to read; it is not what opposition
counsel might expect; and in modern times, it is not what
judges expect. All classes of reader want to know the core
of what you have to say. Some will not bother to read
the entire document, and will rush to the conclusion as
soon as possible. Some will try to read the entire docu-
ment, but get lost in the train of logic. It is essential that
the writer reach the reader, and the general principles de-
scribed here help the writer achieve that goal.
is section of the handbook presents several ideas
that assume you have already done the legal analysis that
you were trained to undertake. You then work with the
analysis to mould it for your reader so that it persuades,
as the raw material (your theory) is rarely persuasive by it-
self. ink about how many elections you have observed
in which the party with the best platform was drowned
out in a torrent of spin. How many jury trials that were
lost in the testimony were won in the closing argument?
e most logical argument that fails to persuade is still
just that — a failure. is section helps turn your analysis
into persuasion.
Writer’s Voice
counterintuitive, but writers have a voice.
When writing is tedious, turgid, and long-winded, this
reects the voice of the writer. When writing is bright,
airy, and cheerful, this also reects that voice. Your writ-
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