This post is for all in my network. It explains how to shorten and change the wording of your name in your LinkedIn address.

You should follow the below steps and then add your personalized LinkedIn address to the top of your resume, with your email address and phone number.

Dear Legal Writer, Lindsey Lawton and I partner today to bring you this tip on a common sentence-starter that’s tripped folks up lately:

“As __, . . .”

For example,

“As a lawyer, . . .”
“As plaintiff in a tort case, . . .”
“As the judge of record, . . . “

Dear Legal Writer,

If you supervise a lot of junior legal writers, you likely face a passive-voice problem.

Please send them to this carousel for the fix. ⤵️

“Is comprised by” is always wrong.

Here’s why. ⤵️

“To comprise” = “to contain,” “to consist of,” “to be composed of.”

✅ All these sentences are correct:

-The whole contains its parts.

Dear Legal Writer:

My friend, Min Cho, suggested that I write about “i.e.” and “e.g.”  To begin, please know that unless you’re a Latin scholar, getting these correct is not intuitive.

Both abbreviations get used a lot in legal writing, so you’ll want to make sure you learn and can use them.

Here’s a short guide.  ⤵️

Dear Legal Writer:

“Prior to” is NOT a good synonym for “before” in legal writing.

It’s stiff.
It’s stilted.
It’s stuffy.

🔻 “Prior to” will not make you sound smarter than “before.”

Dear Matt,

Marrying you was the best decision I ever made.

What an extraordinary life journey we’ve had together.

Happy, happy 25th Anniversary—

I am so excited for another 25, and more!

Dear Legal Writer:

Before you use your next em-dash, make sure you know what you’re doing.

📍 Apparently, almost no 1Ls have been taught how to use an em-dash.

📍 I haven’t seen a law student use an em-dash properly in any of the writing samples I’ve reviewed these past 3 years.

— Wait, what’s that you say?

🔺 “Since” has been a good synonym for “because” since time immemorial?

🔺 And “since” is a full syllable shorter, it has 2 fewer letters, and it sounds so much better than “because,” so you love to use it?

For most of my life, I avoided “affect” as a verb.

I would use “impact,” or just change the sentence around to avoid the decision.

But the verb “to impact” doesn’t really mean “to affect.” (To impact” means to hit with force, or to jolt.) And sometimes my sentence-rearranging would be awkward.

Dear Legal Writer: Every year in BigLaw (except perhaps 2009), there was a fresh crop of first-year associates. You could feel the buzz of beginnings in the air on Day 1. There was nervous energy & excitement, and they brought a powerful injection of energy and enthusiasm into our department. 🛑 BUT . . .

There was one serious mistake they’d all always make.

Dear Legal Writer: It’s a mistake to short shrift your Table of Contents (TOC).

The TOC may be the most important part of your brief.

🔶 It’s likely the very first thing a court will read, and that makes it prime real estate for starting to persuade.

✅ A, B, and C -YES

❌ A, B and C -NO

✅ A, B & C -YES

❌ A, B, & C -NO

***
RULE: DO use a comma before “and” in a list of 3 or more.

Please stop referring to the “company” as “they.”

The “company” is an “it,” not a “they.”

If you have doubts, below is a short explanation, along with a query for international peeps:

**
In U.S. English: