To badly hijack a quote from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, good legal writing style, like pornography, is hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

Attorneys start developing a legal writing style in law school. For most of us, it is awkward at first. Remember IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion)? Not to speak of wedging in legal citations, not just in a proper Bluebook format, but in a manner that doesn’t get in the way of content. How much does one paraphrase a case, quote directly?

Just when you thought you had briefs and memos nailed down, many of you realized that the bulk of your future writing would likely fall into the category of “transactional writing,” which raises a whole host of different questions concerning the best way to communicate.

As with any writing, you can’t go wrong if you follow the cardinal rule: always keep audience and purpose in mind. But even when you know who will read your scrawl and you know what you want your reader to get out of it, you may need help accomplishing the goal. Time to turn to legal style guides.

We do a lot of writing at practicelaw (and have done a lot in our collective lives prior to practicelaw), and here are the resources we consult most:

Bryan Garner has written several legal writing style guides, including The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style. One painless way to improve your style is to sign up  for Garner’s “Usage Tip of the Day.” He also conducts seminars. I attended one several years ago and it was excellent.

Kenneth Adams penned Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. We often feature links to his blog posts in Legal News Digest.

Wayne Schiess has published a number of articles and books, including Writing for the Legal Audience. His website includes a list of style guide recommendations, some I’ve mentioned and others as well.

Unlike citation manuals, legal style guides tend to be just that – guides. The more well-known, oft-used guides don’t agree on all issues but perusing them gives you a range of options.

For example the “experts” disagree on the ideal use and formatting of defined terms. No widespread agreement but all have valid considerations for you to ponder. In other areas, they absolutely agree. If you think putting a sentence in all caps makes it more readable or more understandable, the experts uniformly would say you’re wrong.

We are all lifelong learners so take two minutes here and there and consult some good legal style resources. From there, go with your writer’s gut. You know your audience and purpose best which gives you an edge over any author of a style guide. They can, however, help you to attain your goal of connecting with your audience.

Posted by Nancy Hupp