Plain English for Lawyers [Paperback]

Richard C. Wydick (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0890899940 | ISBN-13: 978-0890899946 | Publication Date: January 1998 | Edition: 4

Now in its fourth edition, Wydick's book stands the test of time. With its affordable price, this book is the most cost-effective teaching tool available to legal writing instructors. It teaches the legal profession how to learn and practice basic techniques of good writing through examples from briefs, statutes, and other legal writings. It also provides practical exercises so that readers may try out their new-found insights.

The fourth edition includes a subsection on syntactic ambiguity and a subsection with ideas for drafting statutes, rules, and other formal documents, as well as updated endnotes and many new exercises.

Plain English for Lawyers has proven itself to be one of the most essential tools for law students and practicing lawyers alike, and Wydick's humorous demonstrations of legalese endear this book to both students and faculty.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard C. Wydick is a professor of law at the University of California-Davis School of Law.

Product Details

• Paperback: 173 pages
• Publisher: Carolina Academic Pr; 4 edition (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890899940
• ISBN-13: 978-0890899946
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #138,575 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Law > One-L > Legal Writing

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Legal-Writing Classic, September 10, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Plain English for Lawyers (Paperback)

This book provides great advice and practical, well-designed exercises. Once considered radical by most lawyers, the book has helped reform legal writing, teaching a generation of lawyers that their writing "should not differ, without good reason, from ordinary well-written English."

The book is also a model of effective prose. It's clear and understandable even to a first-year law student. Yet it's also valuable to seasoned lawyers, especially to those die-hard lawyers who insist that legal writing should remain dense, and often incomprehensible, just because it's always been that way.

Well-respected experts such as Wydick and Garner reject that notion. And clients, who often succeed or fail (and sometimes live or die) by their lawyers' words, should reject it too.

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If only every Lawyer read this..., August 21, 2002

By 

DJK ver 2.0 "Reader and Movie Buff" (Richardson, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plain English for Lawyers (Paperback)

This book was required reading for my first year in law school. After having read through it, I am glad it was. I wish that more lawyers were required to read it.

'Plain English for Lawyers' helps everyone write effectively from the Law Student, the practicing Lawyer, the Judge on the Bench, or just somebody that wants to write a persuasive or complicated report how to

Several frequent exercises are included to give the reader an opportunity to practice. Examples are plentiful, and illustrated well.

The last chapter covers punctuation. This chapter makes the book a reference worth keeping. I would recommend to anyone needing a reference for writing briefs, memorandum, or legal correspondence to keep this book on hand.

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of those style books that ranscebds its genre., January 9, 2006

By 

Michael P. Barnes "eastwood21" (Tenafly, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plain English for Lawyers (5th Edition) (Paperback)

I'm a lawyer who is considered a wordsmith by colleagues and judges. This is one of the most important books I've ever encountered. I was exposed to it in my first law school year's writing class, and its lessons have remained with me since. Banish the passive voice! (unless deliberately and thoughfully chosen and used). This is not merely a key to fluidity in writing, but in a sense a moral imperative. Actions are attributable to actors - they don't simply occur. If you're asserting an action took place, you and your reader should know who or what you claim set it in motion. This necessitates intellectual rigor and clarity. Also, I remember and have employed for twenty-five years Wydick's apt metaphor that good legal writing is like fine cabinetmaking: the skill of the craftsman is shown by the crafted joints not requiring glue, just as the quality of a piece of prose is shown by its lack of reliance on "glue words" (read the book). I've used the lessons of Wydick's brief book as a lawyer, writer and writing teacher. I've given it to colleagues, non-lawyers and young relatives. Their writing uniformly improved.