LawProse

You’ll often hear what seem to be contradictions about writing. For example, Jean de La Bruyère (1645–1696), a 17th‑century French moralist and satirist, quipped: “It is the glory and merit of some people to write well, and of others not to write at...

Every piece of writing, from an appellate brief to a client memorandum, must meet four essential demands: deciding what to write about, selecting materials for discussion, determining the form of presentation, and envisioning the effect on the audience...

There’s an old maxim every lawyer should memorize before touching a keyboard: never take on a subject too bulky to be exhausted in the space you’re given. That limit—the word count, the page cap, the court’s firm ceiling—isn’t your jailer but your compass...

Aristotle’s triad for good writing—subject, purpose, audience—is no relic of antiquity. It remains the governing geometry of persuasive legal prose. A sound brief doesn’t hide behind citations or curlicues of style. It moves with clarity because its...