Focusing on the argumentative, narrative, and descriptive style found in legal briefs and judicial opinions, this text should be a thought provoking examination of effective argumentation in law.

When Garner's award-winning Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage appeared in 1987, it was acclaimed throughout the English-speaking world. Now he has written a new writing guide, this one inspired by Strunk & White's classic book, The Elements of Style. Packed with samples from noted legal writers, including Oliver Wendell Holmes.

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the essential rules of legal writing. Unlike most style or grammar guides, it focuses on the special needs of legal writers, answering a wide spectrum of questions about grammar and style -- both rules and exceptions. It also gives detailed, authoritative advice on punctuation, capitalization, spelling, footnotes, and citations, with illustrations in legal context. Designed for law students, law professors, practicing lawyers, and judges, the work emphasizes the ways in which legal writing differs from other styles of technical writing. Its how-to sections deal with editing and proofreading, numbers and symbols, and overall document design. Features: * Cautions on use of 500 stuffy phrases and needless legalisms, along with their everyday English translations * Details rules for 800 words with required prepositions in certain contexts * Explains the correct usage of more than 1,000 words that are often troublesome to legal writers * Gives tips on preparing briefs and other court documents, opinion letters and demand letters, research memos, and contracts * Provides model documents of all types of legal documents and pleadings Reviews 200 terms of art that take on new meanings in legal contexts

A comprehensive guide to legal style and usage, with practical advice on how to write clear, jargon-free legal prose. Includes style tips as well as definitions.

A comprehensive guide to legal style and usage, with practical advice on how to write clear, jargon-free legal prose. Includes style tips as well as definitions.

In their professional lives, courtroom lawyers must do these two things well: speak persuasively and write persuasively. In this noteworthy book, two noted legal writers systematically present every important idea about judicial persuasion in a fresh, entertaining way. The book covers the essentials of sound legal reasoning, including how to develop the syllogism that underlies any argument. From there the authors explain the art of brief writing, especially what to include and what to omit, so that you can induce the judge to focus closely on your arguments. Finally, they show what it takes to succeed in oral argument.

The Elements of Legal Prose offers a brief yet comprehensive introduction to the study of legal prose, a special kind of writing with its own rhetorical emphasis. Specifically aimed at those whose vocation involves discourses governed by legal logic, this practical guide articulates the basic components and formats found in good legal writing. The Elements of Legal Prose approaches legal writing as a step-by-step process. In addition to covering legal definition and research, this book also includes discussions of style and ethics in this genre, as well as guidance for students applying to law school. The Elements of Legal Prose sets out quickly the special ways of thought and writing which must cover, in readable prose, a subject matter in which anything incomplete or inexact may have very serious consequences.