—She doesn’t know any of the facts.
—He doesn’t know any of the research.
—They don’t know any of the legal rules.

NOTHING.

Your professor is just some random lawyer from the street who happens to pick up your memo to read.

Could that random lawyer follow your memo?

The answer needs to be “yes.”

▶️ They fix their main verbs but forget the verbs in their dependent clauses.  

Take this sentence, for example: 

“The motion was granted by the court because the evidence submitted by the plaintiff was inadmissible.” 

Most would spot the passive in “was granted by the court” and change it to “the court granted,” but what about “the evidence submitted by the plaintiff”?  

You think these words mean the same thing, but they can have dramatically different effects.

Consider: “Plaintiff argues that because she is Black and her supervisor is white, his decision to fire her must have been race discrimination.”

Now you want to explain why that argument’s wrong, but you have to choose “A” or “B”:

A. “This argument fails because . . .”
B. “That argument fails because . . .”

BEFORE: I was NERVOUS before presenting this morning.

AFTER: It went really well.

Here’s what we ended up talking about:

— Three mistakes new associates make on page 1
— Three things to include in every case description

They are verbs hiding inside clunky noun clauses:
 
For example, take the clause, “make the decision”:
 
            ORIG: The court made the decision to exclude the expert’s testimony. 👎
 
            REV: The court decided to exclude the expert’s testimony. ✅
 
“Made the decision” is not wrong.

He crossed it out automatically—every time he saw it—to save space.

But sometimes, deleting “that” makes the reader picture a judge physically holding a party.

That was not a clarity improvement.

It’s Latin.
It’s legalese.
And it makes you go in slow-mo.

❌ “Assuming, arguendo, that the case is ripe for review, the plaintiff still lacks standing to bring it.”

Try “even if” instead.

(It’ll help you sound less dead.)

✅ “Even if the case were ripe for review, the plaintiff lacks standing to bring it.”

Verbs come in two types:

1: ACTION verbs—

These propel your reader forward by presenting action.

2: TO-BE verbs (also called, “state-of-being” verbs)—

These trap your reader in place by describing a static condition.

So I came up with this new framework: M-A-D-E

M = Master the material
A = Arrange the material
D = Draft the sections
E = Edit in stages

(This is for trial-court briefs.)

Here are the details:

📍 "based on"
📍 "as a result of"
📍 "for the reason that"
📍 "due to the fact that"
📍 "in light of the fact that"
📍 "on account of the fact that"

All these ways take a roundabout route to get to your point.

They're also clunky to read, and they add to your word count.

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.