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.

(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.

(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.