You should banish the word from your vocabulary—especially in a brief.

ORIG:        Plaintiff is clearly wrong.  👎

REV:         Plaintiff is wrong.  ✅

The second one lands harder.

It cuts out a full word and two syllables, and it sounds less stuffy and formulaic—

✏️ Change “pursuant to” to “under”:

ORIG:              Defendant brings this motion for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

For the first time, Scribes’s best legal-writing essays since 1990 can be found all in one place:

“Gems from The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing: Volumes 1–20,” an anthology edited by Joe Kimble.

🔹 A word on the editor:

I've never met Joe Kimble. But his name has long been associated in my mind with the very best legal writing advice.

It’s memorable. It’s dramatic. It’s . . . technically flawed.

👉 Grammatically, the sentence says the bar exam died three times.

Why? Because of a dangling modifier.

(It also saves space--)

ORIG:       A reasonable jury could not find negligence on this evidence.

REV:         No reasonable jury could find negligence on this evidence.  ✅

That little word “no” changes the sentence’s whole tenor and flow.

Make this one small change to your LinkedIn headline—and you will immediately stand out.

Most profiles say:
“Incoming law student.”

That tells me almost nothing.

Now compare:

“Incoming law student interested in Labor & Employment law, ABC Law School.”

Today is Day 6—and last—of my Dear 1L® 2026 summer cohort for incoming 1Ls.

It’s been amazing!!
 
I built the course to address two surprises that will otherwise blindside new students:
 
🔹 1: Recruiting is happening before you even start.

(It makes a big difference.)

TBH, for years, I felt like a fraud from Bryan Garner’s advice to “write swiftly” (until I finally understood what he meant).

At the time, nothing about my brief-writing was “swift.”

Agonizing, yes.
Painstaking, true.
Laborious, always.

Greta (my baby, but now 23) just released her first album.

The title is “Baby Fat,” and it’s fantastic.

I hope you will check it out on Spotify.

So far, my favorite songs are “We Both Know,” “Sunshine,” and “Just My Luck!”

 ✏️  Instead of “is not required to,” use “need not.”

Examples:

Ex 1:      To prevail on its motion, the defendant is not required to disprove the plaintiffs’ claims.

Rev 1:    To prevail on its motion, the defendant need not disprove the plaintiffs’ claims.

All through June, I’d been in this awful limbo—
studying some, but not intensely—
with too much time left to go “all‑in,”
but not enough to relax.

The result?

A whole month ruined by self‑doubt, guilt, and truly elite‑level procrastination. If there had been medals, I definitely would have placed.

But this one brought me such delight.

So we noticed a small nest on a high shelf, right by our front door.

And day after day, we waited.

No activity.

So we started to think it was empty.

Deserted.

Blah:  “Thus, we decided to delay the deposition.”
New:  “We thus decided to delay the deposition.”  ✅
--
Blah: “Therefore, his counsel ceded to our demands.”
New:  “His counsel therefore ceded to our demands.”  ✅
--
Same words.
Same logic.

Kidding. Sort of.

The truth is that lawyers actually use Latin rules like “expressio unius” every day—often without even thinking about it.

We use them to help us interpret constitutions, statutes, judge’s opinions, and all other forms of legal writing.

The book is:

<< Rules to Speak By: Present and Persuade Like the Country’s Best Lawyers >>

👉👉 but don’t let the title fool you!

That’s because the book’s lessons apply to ANY kind of communication, including CLE presentations and (yes, even legal writing).

In fact, just yesterday, I changed what I’m teaching in a course today based on this book.