Would You Care for Little Latin with That?
Armillary Observations expands on a brief Volokh Conspiracy post regarding a good-natured disagreement between judges over the continuing vitality of Latin in the law.
View ArticleAddressing Your Brief To a Specific Circuit Judge . . .
. . . or, at least, to a specific group of circuit judges, may now be possible, if Tom Caso at The Opening Brief is correct. He cites a study covering ten years of federal appellate opinions that...
View ArticleArguing against Binding Authority
What do you do when your only hope is to take a position that has been soundly rejected by the same appellate court in a prior case? Well, you don’t do it by arguing for that position as if that bad...
View ArticleRoundup: Skilling’s Brief
Former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling’s brief in the appeal of his criminal conviction states in support of his request for oral argument that his prosecution was “perhaps the most prominent and...
View ArticleA Professor’s Lament and More Legal Writing Resources
Professor Austen Parrish of Southwestern Law School, as a guest writer at Prawfsblawg, laments the poor writing skills of first-year law students, including this comment: “Exam answers (at times...
View ArticleStyle Tips from Raymond Ward
Raymond Ward of the (new) legal writer has posted a chapter he contributed to A Defense Lawyer’s Guide to Appellate Practice in 2004. The chapter is on writing style. It’s a quick read (seven pages)...
View ArticlePlagiarism Sanctions Issue, Blog Readers React, and How this Relates to Value...
This post at The Volokh Conspiracy post and this one at Tax Prof Blog both provide extended excerpts from an Iowa bankruptcy case in which the court sanctioned an attorney — quite stiffly — for...
View ArticleYour Introduction Shouldn’t be an Introduction
Evan Schaeffer at The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog offers some good advice on how to start a memorandum or brief: At the trial court level, most lawyers begin their briefs with an “Introduction”...
View ArticleDrawbacks to Form Files
In his post entitled “Legal writing isn’t what it shoud be #4″ — as its title implies, the fourth in a series of such posts — UT Law Professor Wayne Schiess of Wayne Schiess’s legal-writing blog gives...
View ArticleFiction Writing Techniques in Legal Briefs
Those interested in following up on this post regarding fiction-writing techniques in legal briefs can check out an article by M.C. Sungaila of Horvitz & Levy, “The Literate Lawyer: Fiction-Writing...
View ArticleFootnote Furor
Two posts at legal writing blogs Tuesday about footnotes. Raymond Ward at the (new) legal writer links to a paper at SSRN (Social Science Research Network) by Professor Douglas Abrams called “Those...
View ArticleSkilling’s 58,922-Word Brief Accepted by Fifth Circuit
The WSJ.com Law Blog reports that the Fifth Circuit has granted former CEO executive Jeff Skilling’s request to file an overlength brief. WSJ.com has posted the Fifth Circuit’s order, which allows...
View ArticleGobbledygook Award Winners
Party of the First Part has announced the winners of the Golden Gobbledygook Award, including a link to the first prize winner: an information for conspiracy, money laundering and other crimes, which...
View ArticleLatin Spell Checking
Party of the First Part has a hilarious anecdotal post on the dangers of using a word processor to spell-check briefs containing latin legal phrases. Which reminds me of this post.
View ArticleThe Great Writ
Professor Wayne Schiess excerpts The Party of the First Part by Adam Freedman, who writes against legalese at his blog of the same name. To illustrate that alternatives to word-for-word translation...
View ArticleGold . . . Pure Gold
I post a lot about legal writing, usually with reference to briefs or judicial opinions. But what about blogs? If you saw my Simply the Best Law Blogs post, you know that Decision of the Day is among...
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Be Very Careful Pronouncing this Word
Attorneys are probably better off just staying away from this week’s Word of the Week from Party of the First Part. At least in speech. An accidental mispronunciation to the court could land you in...
View ArticleAre You Presenting Non-Topics as Topics?
In a post called Choosing topics for topic sentences, Professor Wayne Schiess gives some great advice, backed up by commentary from judges, about topic pitfalls to avoid. Read it to find out if you...
View ArticleThe Arbitration Skill Set
Are the skills and tactics best suited for arbitration very different than those routinely used in litigation? Legal Writing Prof Blog has a link to an upcoming law review article on the topic.
View ArticleWhich Legal Writing Authors are Cited the Most?
Legal Writing Prof Blog wants your help finding out.
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