Welcome to my LinkedIn archive.
Categories: Dear 1L, Dear 2L, Legal Writing
By Year: 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021
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Search by word to find what Iโve written on the topic of your choosing!
Dear 1L, Law professors get persnickety over pronounsโand rightly so, as you will see.
โSo if Dick and Dennis go play tennis, do NOT next say that โheโ wins 6โ3.
โIf Mary and June take a walk at noon, do NOT write that โsheโ stops for tea.
Dear 1L, You will write the words โplaintiffโ and โdefendantโ a TON this year. But thereโs a trap: sometimes you capitalize them, and sometimes you donโt.
Hereโs the convention to follow:
๐ท When to keep them lowercaseโ
Dear Legal Writer, Iโm getting myself pumped for the LA City Attorneyโs office this afternoon. Iโm going to teach them not to โCUSSโ!
Thatโs my acronym for 4 bad words in legal writing:
โcompriseโ โ lawyers always get this wrong
I drafted 7 perfect pages (or so I thought), but all I heard back was:
โ๐๐จ ๐ก๐๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฌ?
๐๐จ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐???
๐๐ข๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐จ ๐ 7-๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ ๐
๐๐๐ญ๐ฌ ๐ฌ๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐๐ ๐ก๐๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฌ?โ
The partner was incredulous, her voice rising in pitch and exasperation with each question
Dear 1L, You will find that legal writing is full of traps.
And unfortunately, youโre likely to fall into these traps.
โThatโs because you havenโt focused on grammar or punctuation for ages.
โLegal writing also requires you to use new words and terms about which you know zilch.
At the start of law school, there will be braggarts.
They may say they took a comprehensive pre-law prep course and feel โready to go!โ
They may boast that theyโve already:
โread the first monthโs reading,
Dear Legal Writer: The 3 most important things to recall when writing any brief:
1: Your reader is busy.
2: Your reader will NOT be reading for pleasure.
3: Your reader WILL be reading to extract information.
How to Write an IRAC Essay for law school examsโ
Dear 2L, We spoke a lot about IRAC essay exams last year, but itโs been several months. I thought a refresher was due.
Key Reminder: You must do a complete IRAC analysis for every Element of every Claim and Defense or for every Factor in the courtโs applicable test.
Dear 1L, Lawyers have some wacky ways of writing things.
Learn them early so you donโt lose points when it counts.
1. In the legal world, we spell the word โjudgmentโ without an โe.โ
โ> Change your Word settings so they autocorrect โjudgementโ to โjudgmentโ when you type.
Dear Legal Writer, Be careful using โnotโ and โbecauseโ in the same sentence.
Hereโs a classic example:
๐ฟ โShe was not promoted because she is female.โ
Hmm. Was she promoted?
Thatโs not clear.
Dear 1L, I hate the saying, โLook left; look right; 3 years from now, only 1 of you will be here
Old law-school deans apparently used to say this to 1Ls on the first day of law school.)
Hereโs what I want you to think about today instead:
Dear Legal Writer, โIf you can give good directions, you can probably write a good brief.โ
โThatโs one of Bryan Garnerโs famous quotes, and I want you to think about what it means.
I also want you to go back to the pre-iPhone and pre-Mapquest days when Garner said it:
Dear Legal Writer, For the love of God, please stop writing โBy and through undersigned counsel.โ
Nothing requires it.
Your signature block covers it.
Your hackneyed legalese adds nothing.
STOP!
Dear Legal Writer, Hereโs something I use every day to make my writing betterโ
In fact, itโs my No. 1 tool.
(And itโs not some fancy, new AI program; Iโve been using this same tool for decades.)
6 Markers of Firm Culture to Look for & How to Uncover Them
Itโs hard to know a law firmโs true culture before you actually start working there.
But no law student wants to start working somewhere only to find out itโs a mismatch.
You really need to do some detective work first.