Dear 1L,

Here’s a writing tip for content creators, as well as legal writers.

I’ve noticed that many of you start posts with the word “As,” as in:

“As a lawyer,”
“As a law student,” or
“As an [anything].”

⚠️ Doing that is dangerous. In fact, you need to watch out for any sentence that starts with “As a . . .”

—> You must stop & think carefully before writing your next word.

—> That word must be the same person described after “As a . . . .”

EXAMPLE

Let’s take the “As a lawyer,” example.

1: If you’re talking about yourself as a lawyer, your next word should be “I.”

2: If you’re talking about your reader as a lawyer, your next word should be “you.”

3: And if you’re talking about a lawyer named Bob Smith, your next word should be “Bob,” “Smith,” “Bob Smith,” or “he.”

***

🛑 Your next word after “As a lawyer,” should NEVER be “it” or “there.”

❌ “As a lawyer, it is . . .” is wrong.

—I don’t know what “it” is, but it is not “a lawyer.”

❌ “As a lawyer, there are . . .” is wrong, too.

—“There” isn’t the lawyer you’re talking about either.

***

MORE EXAMPLES

Here are some other ungrammatical starts to posts I’ve seen recently:

❌ “As a published author, people ask me a lot about the process of book writing.”

—“people” ≠ “published author”

❌ “As a bar-exam tutor, clients usually contact me after they’ve failed in their first attempt.”

—“clients” ≠ “tutor”

***
🗳️ Please let me know if you have any questions.

Fondly,
💌 Amanda

#Dear1L
#legalwriting
#lawyers
#contentmarketing