How To Write the Proper Legal Documents: Tips From Experienced Law Professionals

SUMMARY

Writing for any purpose, whether for school, business, or pleasure, can be a daunting task for many people. It is often difficult to organize thoughts and communicate them in a clear and effective manner. This article provides helpful advice for improving written communication and writing skills.


One of the most important elements of good writing is organization. Develop a plan or outline of your work, using keywords and phrases to organize thoughts and ideas. This will help keep your writing clear, concise, and focused. Additionally, research and read other writers' work to help you gain a better understanding of the best methods to use in your own writing.

When beginning a writing project, it is important to brainstorm and jot down ideas and topics. Once you have a list of topics, create a thesis statement that focuses the writing and informs the reader of the main point of the document. Also, be sure to consider the audience when crafting this statement.

After developing your thesis, decide which order will be best used to present your ideas and arguments. Utilizing effective techniques such as cause and effect and compare and contrast will help make your writing engaging and informative. Also, be sure to prove your thesis with evidence. Examples, quotes, data, and facts are great tools to use.

Grammar and punctuation are also essential components of good writing. Be sure to check for mistakes in spelling, capitalization, verb use, and punctuation. Additionally, use brief, direct sentences combined with long sentences for good flow. Paragraph transitions and sentence variety will also help keep a reader's attention.

Lastly, carefully review and edit your document before submitting it. Writing can be a tedious task, but with practice and dedication, it is possible to hone writing skills and become a more effective communicator. Whether writing for school, work, or pleasure, following the advice presented in this article will help you to write in a way that will engage and inform readers.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS ARTICLE

 

What is the most important rule for legal writing?

The most important rule for legal writing is plain English and avoiding words people don't normally use.
 

Is it a good idea to copy from other documents when crafting your final product?

No, copying from other documents when crafting your final product is not advisable. Using them as a reference and writing your own content is better.
 

How can I ensure I have clean grammar in my document?

To ensure you have clean grammar in your document, familiarize yourself with the grammar rules and double-check for errors using a spell-checker or with the help of a proofreader.
 

Who can I ask for help in writing legal documents?

You can ask other people, such as your office mate, assistant, or partner on the deal, to be your readers and provide helpful feedback. Additionally, there are reference books available that can provide guidance.
 

How many drafts should I create of a document?

You should create as many drafts as needed to get the desired result. It is important to keep rewriting and editing until you run out of time. There is no such thing as a first, second, or third draft; it is a continual revision and improvement process.
 

A diligent young lawyer — you, for example — can spend weeks researching a client issue. The customary product of that effort is, of course, a memo or document. A concise and clear summation of your findings. The problem is, law school trained you to do the opposite — professors wanted too much information rather than just enough, and Law Review writing was intricate and verbose. To avoid such wordiness, we've assembled this concise and clear guide to writing documents that are downright literary.

1 KEEP IT SIMPLE The objective of every writing assignment is to convince the reader that your position is the correct one. So your writing needs to be, well, convincing. Keep on a single, defined path that's always going in the same direction. "The classic red flag is when a memo or brief meanders, identifying issues, cases, and other tourist attractions along the way," says Peter Sloan, a partner in Kansas City's Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin. You're less likely to be distracted by detours if you stick to a plan (ideally one you've discussed with the assigning partner at the outset). Make an outline, and as you unearth the facts, file each one in the appropriate section. The final step: String them all together.

While most outlines end with an entry called "Conclusion," yours should be revealed up front. The Sixth Sense this isn't. "It's not a good idea to keep people guessing about the conclusion," says Steven Cohen, a litigation partner at New York's Kronish Lieb Weiner & Hellman. Read through your draft. If it fails to convince you, it probably won't sway anyone else.

A few other ways to simplify your work:
Use monosyllabic words at least 60 percent of the time, says C. Edward Good, a counsel and writer in residence at the Reston, Virginia, offices of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow & Garrett. No need to whip out the calculator, but scan a paragraph once in a while. Good estimates that one-syllable words comprised about 70 percent of Oliver Wendell Holmes's opinions.

Write in short, declarative sentences. Aim for an average sentence length of 15 to 20 words. The reader will move quickly and smoothly without getting bogged down in sentences that go on and on and on and on and on.
Don't lard your prose with superfluous information. "People tend to think if one citation is good, 15 are better," says Cohen. "They're not." Your argument gets lost in the padding.

2 DON'T SHOW OFF Forget legalese. Being a lawyer doesn't mean throwing around big, lawyerly words. "There is no place in a sophisticated law practice for legal gobbledygook," says Sloan. Plain English is the only kind of writing partners expect. "You can always pick an associate's very first brief out of the pack," says Cohen. "They get into this mode where they use words that people never use, such as whereas." If it's not a word you'd say, then don't write it. (Unless, of course, you normally use an abundance of profanity and backwoods slang when discussing cases.) Speak your memo into a dictaphone first, then transcribe it. Chances are you'll have a first draft that's near what the final product should be.

3 ORIGINALITY WINS The Internet has made it tempting-and easy-to pull a document from a brief bank and model yours after it. Using a standard form as a starting point, to see how others have handled similar situations, is a fine idea. Cutting and pasting from their work is not. When crafting your final product, says Cohen, raid the recycling bin only as a reference. Not only are you treading dangerously close to plagiarism, you may be cribbing from inferior work. "Just because a document is in a brief bank doesn't necessarily mean it's a good document, or better than what you'd come up with," Cohen says. Also, don't rely on documents written decades earlier by lawyers in your firm. Form and style often change, even within a practice. Ask your assigning lawyer if the firm has an up-to-date style guide.

4 FOLLOW THE RULES The rules of grammar, that is. Do you know when to use "that" instead of "which"? "Whom" instead of "who"? (Are you sure?) Shabby grammar shows laziness and lack of interest-qualities that probably do not appear on your resume. Aim for cleanliness in every sentence and in the document as a whole. "Identify the document's structure, transition, and phrasing," says Sloan. That means not mistaking your computer's spell-check and grammar monitors-those squiggly red and green lines-for editing.

Helpful resources abound, from reference books (see box above) to proofreaders at your firm. Take advantage.

5 BE THE CLIENT Blanket rule: Assume anything you hand in will go straight to the client. This may not be true, but it happens. Ask other people-your office mate, assistant, even the partner on the deal-to be your readers. They may spot errors you've missed, from errant semicolons to faulty logic.

The painful part is that sometimes your most important work won't end up in the final draft. But sometimes you need to put down everything you know so you have a nice, thick trunk of information from which you can whittle your intricate argument. "The secret to good writing is rewriting-then more rewriting," says Cohen. "No matter how much time you spent putting something into a memo, you shouldn't be afraid to take it out."

Once you've completed a draft, do another, and another. "There's no such thing as a first draft, second draft, third draft, and final draft," says Cohen. "It's a process that only ends when you run out of time. It's a quest for perfection that is never achieved." Maybe so, but you can come damn close.

Four titles to keep on your shelf at all times ... except when you're using them:

Strunk & White's The Elements of Style
Plain English for Lawyers by Richard C. Wydick
Essential English Grammar by Philip Gucker
Merriam Webster's Dictionary of Law