Effective Writing: a Handbook with Stories for Lawyers

Effective Writing: A Handbook with Stories for Lawyers offers specific advice on how to write effectively the many kinds of writing lawyers do in actual practice.. It considers what makes writing effective in letters of various kinds, forms, bills, the many kinds of writing done through the trial, writing for an appeal, contracts, and writing for wills and trusts. The last chapter addresses how to rewrite to promote more effective thinking and how to rewrite for the reader, going beyond the usual considerations of correct or "plain" style to address what constitutes effective word choice, sentence structure, organization, citation and quotation in real contexts. The book is seasoned with "sidebars"-brief stories about legal writing from many judges, lawyers, and other writers-- that help to bring the world of legal writing alive. This book is the product of a collaboration between a distinguished lawyer, a professor of English (Rhetoric and Writing).