Redlines
Judging
Go Light on Heavy Connectors (PDF)
Vol. 103 No. 2 (2019) | Pay NCAA athletes?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 […]
Judging
Let’s ditch unnecessary procedural detail (PDF)
Vol. 102 No. 1 (2018) | Forensic FailThis 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, […]
Judging
Repairing Long Sentences (PDF)
Vol. 102 No. 3 (2018) | Crowdsourcing and Data AnalyticsThe long, long sentence is legal writing’s oldest curse. You’ve probably seen even worse than the original sentence, but it’s still way too long (83 words). I offer three different […]
Law & Culture
Zap Multiword Prepositions, Please (PDF)
Vol. 102 No. 2 (2018) | Rights That Made The World RightProbably 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 […]
Law & Culture
A little less stiff, and no tangents, please. (PDF)
Vol. 101 No. 4 (2017) | Equal opportunity?Our writing guru, Joseph Kimble, goes after some common blemishes. In the original opinion, he notes, the second half of the first sentence seems pointless. So does the third sentence, […]
Law & Culture
Bullet points, yes. Unnecessary dates, no. (PDF)
Vol. 101 No. 3 (2017) | Bold and Persistent ReformREDLINES Our writing guru, Joseph Kimble, simplifies and adds punch with some fairly quick fixes. He notes: The opinion deals with Defendant’s motion to quash Plaintiff’s notice of deposition. Before […]