Customer Reviews

The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I became familiar with this book in law school and it has helped me tremendously. It debunks the myths about which practices are truly expected in briefs and which provide more latitude and freedom for legal writers.

The information is presented in 100 easy-to-understand "tips." Each tip provides quotes from judges, legal scholars, and other literary figures who help to explain why a particular facet of writing is important. Garner also includes examples, oftentimes what-to-do's and what-not-to-do's.

The format of the book makes it easy and helpful to use and the information is invaluable. It's like an advanced course in legal writing.

Highly recommended!

The Winning Brief is essential reading for any lawyer who cares about writing clearly and persuasively. As a litigation partner and trial lawyer, I am always looking to improve my own skills and find that Bryan Garner's comments are clear and practical. I strongly recommend The Winning Brief because it goes well beyond many texts that discuss generalisms on trial and appellate briefs--Mr. Garner provides instead direct insight into how to move the trier of fact.

I am currently a law student, this book provides some insightful ideas and is useful because it doesn't require an hour of reading to pick out helpful relevant tips. All the 100 tips are outlined in the front and back cover so you can skim for something specific and go to it and read it.

The author of this book is highly respected and provides many CLE classes, I recommend this book to anyone looking for ways to improve their brief writing.

I am a practicing trial lawyer in a small town. This book is the best legal writing book I have encountered. Garner challenges many of the "white elephants" that practitioners and law professors alike cling to. (For example, the myth about ending a sentence with a preposition). His advice ranges from small grammar rules, to sentence structure, to the overall strategy in formulating briefs and arguments.

From my real world experience, I can tell you that Garner's advice is right on the money and will assist you in winning cases. On multiple occasions over the years, I have had different judges compliment my briefing, but the credit goes to the techniques I learned from Garner. I give this book my highest recommendation. If you can, also take Garner's CLE class that is centered on this same book.

I've read a lot of books on writing, and all of the common books about legal writing, and this is the best of the bunch. If I had to recommend a single book about writing to anyone, lawyer or not, I would recommend this one. It is expensive but worth every penny. Throw away your Strunk and White!

I was formerly the Chief Administrative Law Judge of a nine-Judge panel. We heard highly complex cases and usually spent 5 to 10 days on the record when we heard a case. We started by attending Bryan Garner's drafting seminars. Subsequently, we brought him in to present his course on Judical Writing. Garner's books were the foundation of an exponential improvement in our orders. Moreover, it became easy for us to spot the briefs of "Garner graduates" as their work was always clearer, and more readable than anyone else's. Take it from someone who used to read briefs for a living, the brief that is easy to read and easy to understand is the brief that most easily persuades.

This is the only guide you will ever need to writing good briefs. Garner teaches you to write powerfully in plain English. Be a better lawyer and work with this book!

This is a great book, filled with great advice, from a great legal writing professional. Unfortunately, the Kindle version of this book fails to earn similar praise. There is no "master" list of the 100 tips to quickly browse. The examples, in image format, are hard to read--if not impossible on the small screen. There's no quick-flipping to the tips you want--a problem inherent to the Kindle format. So while the book and its content may be wonderful, if not essential, the Kindle format guts its value. Not bad for reading on the train, but useless when you're writing a brief at your desk.

Yes, another by Garner, and this one is as wonderful, diverse and as instructional as his others, but in specific ways related to English drafting and argumentation in the context of litigation. Therefore, I have to say, this is the boutique book for the litigator who wants to improve his or her English (...that is, if there are some few of you out there who share those usually mutually-exclusive characteristics). The first 50 tips are listed inside the front cover, and the last 50 are inside the back cover, making it a good ready-reference. The meat is, thankfully, between the covers, and in usefully sweet doses: each tip is introduced by 'quotable quotes,' and includes an explanation and applications. Tips are particularized in other ways that endear me to this volume, including subtitles such as "Two Qualms Answered," "Uncommonly Good Examples," "Egregious Examples," etcetera. You get the drift: now, how can you resist it? I would like to suggest that this is the book for both every good litigator...and every good armchair litigator and lover of legal English. So ... Enjoy! Across the board, this was the most 'fun' book to read of the legal English books I set out to review. I note also that its substantive and universal logic and consistency will cross cultures without much difficulty.

A must read for every serious law student and attorney - even if you are an experienced brief writer, this easy to understand book, filled withe clear examples forces you to think and improve your persuasive writing.