It’s official trademark status for Dear 1L!

I don’t quite know yet where I’m taking any of this, but it makes me feel proud to be building something that’s helping so many people.

Your support has meant the world to me. Thank you. Writing to you has brought me great joy.

I received a comment on my recent “5 Hacks” post from someone I don’t know. She seemed quite exasperated by it all:

“Writing great fiction is the antithesis of documenting complex transactions. . . . How can I restore the creative skill I possessed prior to becoming a legal writer?”

Use these 5 hacks to make your brief fit the page limit—without cutting substance.

🔷 1: Convert sentences to active voice.

“The boy hit the ball.” (Active)

—is shorter than—

It started with a cold DM on LinkedIn.

And that DM started unremarkably:
It was a pre-law college student seeking experience in the legal world who wanted to know if I was aware of any internship openings or had any ideas, advice, etc.

Standard fare.

What’s the most important comma for clear legal writing? It’s beyond dispute. Follow this Rule:

Two

Independent

Clauses

Take

A

When I review your writing, one of the first things I do is reword almost all sentences that start, “However, . . .”

“But starting sentences that way is grammatically correct,” you might protest.

And you’d be right. Even so, I suggest you limit your use of this sentence-starter.

I must have seen more than 100 law-student resumes over the past year. Often I see them after a law-school career office has reviewed, and after everyone thinks the resume is “final.” Here’s the problem:

I still catch formatting errors and see other obvious areas for improvement.

Here are 3 fixes for every legal resume:

Dear Legal Writer,

As a junior legal writer, you likely tend to use “Therefore” and “Thus” too often. And you probably always put them at the start of sentences, followed by a comma.

That can make for some pretty plodding prose.  👎

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!