In these two examples, I have done very little rewriting. I simply used plain words and cut unnecessary words (including the egregiously unnecessary parentheticals). And in the second one, I […]
Our writing guru Joseph Kimble offers tips for enlisting the dash and for avoiding legalese and silly, distracting parentheticals. Original According to the Plaintiff, Defendants Exxon Mobil Corporation (“Exxon”), Badger […]
Start strong. Our writing guru, Joseph Kimble, breaks down an opinion’s first paragraph to show a better way. Original Pending before the Court is a letter motion by plaintiff Amy […]
Lawsuits involve people. And rather than turn them into a disembodied “Plaintiff” and “Defendant,” opinions might better use their names. The opinions will be more direct and more human. (Of […]
REDLINES If there’s a good reason why many judicial opinions don’t use informative headings, I haven’t heard it. For readers, headings are a boon to navigating through the opinion. And […]
Check out the original paragraph from this opinion, which dealt with a motion to quash two subpoenas on grounds of attorney-client privilege. In the entire 262-word paragraph, covering 20 lines, […]
Probably the worst small-scale fault in legal writing is unnecessary prepositional phrases, a fault that this column will keep going after. A noxious variant is the multiword preposition — a […]
One of the easiest ways to significantly improve all forms of legal writing is to replace heavy logical connectors with lighter ones (or none at all, where appropriate). Unfortunately, the […]
This Redlines column looks different from the previous ones. For one thing, it doesn’t have any redlines — but rather a simple before and after. Our writing guru, Joseph Kimble, […]