This text teaches lawyers how to adjust their writing to accommodate twelve different legal audiences. In each chapter, a different audience - including consumers, supervisors, and trial judges - and its needs are defined. Tips designed to improve legal writing for each specific audience are then offered. Writing for the Legal Audience also cites examples of poor legal writing, explaining common errors, why they should be fixed, and how to fix them. Readers will find sentence structure advice as well as guidance on organization, tone, format, and document design. Using a short, clear, and easy-to-read format, this book is ideal for practicing lawyers or law students who desire quick hints on improving their writing.
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"The writing tips in this book work." --TRIAL, January 2004
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Wayne Schiess teaches and writes about legal writing, with a particular focus on plain legal writing. Here's how he got there.
Wayne grew up in a small town in Idaho and attended a small high school that offered no AP courses. When he arrived at college, his roommate was surprised that Wayne was taking freshman English. "Didn't you take AP English?" the roommate asked. "What's AP?" Wayne replied.
Despite this lack of early training, Wayne eventually came to value clear writing through the influence of his mother, who, when Wayne was 17, returned to college to finish her English degree and to get a master's in English. She had always insisted that he speak correctly, and she had also imparted the message that good writing is plain, clear, and direct--not fancy, elevated, or pretentious. Yet her insistence on correct speaking and her unspoken messages about effective writing meant little to Wayne until he was 33 years old.
At 33, Wayne was four years into a job as a legal writing teacher at the University of Texas School of Law. He had arrived there after attending Cornell Law School and after three years at Baker Botts, a large Texas law firm. Now, what had started as an interest and as an escape from law practice was becoming Wayne's passion: he realized he loved legal writing, both doing and teaching, and he wanted to make it his lifelong professional career.
And so in an academic career of 20 years, Wayne has devoted himself in a nerdy, mildly obsessed, and always passionate way to legal writing and nothing but.
He teaches analytical legal writing, persuasive legal writing, legal drafting, and plain English. He is a frequent seminar speaker and has published dozens of articles on practical legal-writing skills, plus four books. His blog at Legalwriting.net has been named one of the ABA Journal Blawg 100, and he writes a monthly column on legal writing for Austin Lawyer magazine. In 2010, his work on the Texas Pattern Jury Charges was recognized by the Center for Plain Language. Since 1992, he has been on the law faculty at Texas.
Wayne grew up in a small town in Idaho and attended a small high school that offered no AP courses. When he arrived at college, his roommate was surprised that Wayne was taking freshman English. "Didn't you take AP English?" the roommate asked. "What's AP?" Wayne replied.
Despite this lack of early training, Wayne eventually came to value clear writing through the influence of his mother, who, when Wayne was 17, returned to college to finish her English degree and to get a master's in English. She had always insisted that he speak correctly, and she had also imparted the message that good writing is plain, clear, and direct--not fancy, elevated, or pretentious. Yet her insistence on correct speaking and her unspoken messages about effective writing meant little to Wayne until he was 33 years old.
At 33, Wayne was four years into a job as a legal writing teacher at the University of Texas School of Law. He had arrived there after attending Cornell Law School and after three years at Baker Botts, a large Texas law firm. Now, what had started as an interest and as an escape from law practice was becoming Wayne's passion: he realized he loved legal writing, both doing and teaching, and he wanted to make it his lifelong professional career.
And so in an academic career of 20 years, Wayne has devoted himself in a nerdy, mildly obsessed, and always passionate way to legal writing and nothing but.
He teaches analytical legal writing, persuasive legal writing, legal drafting, and plain English. He is a frequent seminar speaker and has published dozens of articles on practical legal-writing skills, plus four books. His blog at Legalwriting.net has been named one of the ABA Journal Blawg 100, and he writes a monthly column on legal writing for Austin Lawyer magazine. In 2010, his work on the Texas Pattern Jury Charges was recognized by the Center for Plain Language. Since 1992, he has been on the law faculty at Texas.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best of its kind,
By Concerned Citizen "generaljoeschinesefood" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Writing for the Legal Audience (Paperback)
It doesn't get much better than this. Wayne Schiess is one of the foremost legal writing experts out there, and his book is a "must have" for anyone who is serious about improving their legal writing. The book is a no-frills look at what professional, polished legal writing should look like and what is expected of practictioners in this ever-evolving field. This book is an invaluable resource and deserves a spot on your bookshelf right next to Bryan Garner's, "A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage."
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