Legal Writing Tips Thurgood Marshall School of Law

Texas Southern University

Legal Writing Tips is a weekly on-line newsletter about legal writing that is designed to help law students develop a professional legal voice by offering helpful points about grammar, syntax, rhetoric, punctuation, and style; discussing research about legal writing; and making information available about legal writing resources.

Some Helpful Texts for Law Students: A Book to Help Deal with Legalese and a

Booklet to Help Deal with Law School Stress

A Book to Help Lift the Fog of Legalese Carolina Academic Press has published Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language by Joseph Kimble, a graduate of Amherst (1967) and Michigan (1972), and a professor at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, since 1982. Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language is a collection of published essays by Joseph Kimble, a leading expert on plain legal language. This book is intended to open lawyers' eyes to the emptiness of legalesethe style that has afflicted legal writing for centuries. It is written for judges, lawyers, law students, legal scholars, and anyone else who engages in legal writing, and it combines strong evidence and myth-busting arguments for plain legal language with practical advice and many useful examples. Reviews of the book have been very positive. For example, Bryan A. Garner, the editor-in-chief of Blacks Law Dictionary and the author of A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, The Elements of legal Style, and The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style, writes that "Joseph Kimble is an important, original thinker on legal language. He is also a virtuoso writer and editor. In this book he brings all those qualities to bearand no lawyer can safely ignore the wisdom it contains." William Lutz, a professor of English at Rutgers University and the author of The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyones Saying Anymore, writes: "Here is Heavens plenty: Joe Kimble's outstanding work gathered into one volume. Add this volume to your shelf of indispensable books. Kimble's suggestions are clear, concise, and specific, with plenty of real-world examples to illustrate his points, as well as demonstrate that plain language and legal writing should not be strangers but inseparable companions. Get this book, and then get a copy for every lawyer, judge, legislator, and law professor you know." Richard C. Wydick, a professor at the University of California at Davis School of Law and the author of Plain English for Lawyers, writes that "Joseph Kimble's collection of essays is divided into two parts. Part One will convince you if you need convincing that we lawyers should shape up the way we write. Part Two will show you how to do it, using concise guidelines, patient explanations, and a host of examples. This book belongs in the library of every lawyer who takes language seriously."

Volume 1, Issue 17

March 13, 2006

A weekly on-line newsletter about legal

writing to help law students develop a

professional legal voice

EDITORS Aiesha Dennis, 2L

Shalonda Lewter, 3L BeAtrice McFarland, 3L Donna Kay Simons, 2L

ADVISOR

Professor Anthony Palasota

PUBLISHER Center for Legal

Pedagogy

For more information about the Center or to make submissions to Legal Writing Tips, contact Professor Palasota in Room 235 of the law school or by e-mail at apalas@tsulaw.edu or by telephone at 713-313-1022.

Legal Writing Tips Thurgood Marshall School of Law

Texas Southern University

And, Arthur Levitt, the former Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, writes that Kimbles Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language is a superb, well-written book in an understandable language (plain English) that some lawyers and bureaucrats will wish was never written. It explodes the myths put forward by people who either are lazy or intend to confound, and it points out many ways to use precise and clear prose to tell it 'as it is.' I loved it!" Professor Kimbles homepage (http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/kimble/) contains many helpful links to his works: Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please; First Things First: The Lost Art of Summarizing; Answering the Critics of Plain Language; A Crack at Federal Drafting; How to Write an Impeachment Order; The Route to Clear Jury Instructions; Don't Stop Now: An Open Letter to the SEC; and Notes Toward Better Legal Writing. Writing is the lawyer's and law students most valuable skill. Lifting the Fog of Legalese is a helpful collection of essays that will change the attitude of those who resist plain legal language and inspire those who have embraced it. A Booklet to Help Law Students Deal with Stress Professor Larry Krieger from Florida State University College of Law has published a timely booklet for law students entitled: The Hidden Sources of Law School Stress - Avoiding the Mistakes that Create Unhappy and Unprofessional Lawyers. Seeing that many law students often get down and discouraged about their grades, their prospects, their lives, and their selves, etc., Professor Krieger has written a very readable booklet that is designed to deal with the concerns that many teachers share for the well-being of their students. The booklet, based on empirical research on general populations and on law students, seeks to show law students where their stress is really coming from and why most of it is unnecessary. Some of the booklet's topics include the stresses around grades and law review; loss of self-esteem; how to approach thinking 'like a lawyer' without becoming confused about personal worth; and personal, interpersonal, and community values, etc. The booklet is 20 pages bound. A copy is available to read on-line at: http://www.law.fsu.edu/academic_programs/humanizing_lawschool/booklet.php

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Your thoughts about these writing tips are welcomed. Please feel free to respond by email to the editors by sending an email to Professor Palasota: apalas@tsulaw.edu