Customer Reviews

Writing to Win: The Legal Writer: The Complete Guide to Writing Strategies That Will Make Your Case.. and Win It!

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Got this book for my stepson, & got a chance to look at it when we visited him at college. As I expected, it's a good book for anyone who wants to improve their writing, whether they are interested in law or not. What I didn't expect is that it was funny. I found myself laughing, sometimes out loud, every few pages.

Highly recommended.

Jaded from having read almost every major treatise on legal writing written in the past twenty years, I was surprised by how much I liked Professor Stark's book. It's practical, comprehensive, (I especially liked that he even gave advice about how to write reply briefs, amicus briefs, and e-mail, subjects rarely considered elsewhere. Bravo!), bathroom-readable, and funny. (He titles a chapter "Yes, Virginia, you can even make patent applications more readable by studying board games and cookbooks,") For the price, it's an excellent value, especially when compared to Bryan A. Garner's bloated, ego-driven behemoth "The Winning Brief," which, while making good points, also includes several idiotic ones. Unlike Garner, Stark never succombs to trying to be different simply to stand out from the crowd. For that, he gets my highest praise.

Steve Stark's Writing to Win is a thought provoking guide to legal writing. It provides an assessment of writing in daily practice, litigation and even offers advise on drafting appeals. The book is a great supplement for the law student or the practicing attorney. Stark encourages the legal writer to use linear patterns to get from point A to Z without losing anyone. Writing to Win emphasizes that good legal writing is equivalent to the lazy summer story-telling evenings of my South Louisiana childhood in that both focus on providing every detail necessary to capture and keep the audience's attention.

More than one person has referred to Stark as the David Letterman of legal writing instructors. He advances the notion, also advanced by Bryan Garner and for many years by James Raymond, of clear and (hard as it is for a lawyer to do) interesting writing. The several series of commandments at the beginning chapter beginnings enable you to keep the main ideas in your mind. The book is a good combination of instructional manual and a quick briefing paper. All lawyers should read and embrace Stark's notions. I only wish he had not emphasized winning as the goal, but I suppose that what his publisher needed to get someone to buy the book.

Stark takes on the whole legal writing proces in a breezy style. Stark was a litigator once, and it shows. But that was years ago, and I think you can tell. In contrast, I liked Bryan Garner's "The Winning Brief" a lot more, in part because Garner gives real-world examples of what to do and what not to do. Stark tells more than shows. As a litigator myself, I find it more useful if an author shows me an example of what not to do and how to correct it. I gave it three stars.

This book is very useful if you are a law student or a young lawyer. It gives simple rules and is easy to read. Some of his advice should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, he believes that briefs should not be written by several lawyers--but most young lawyers have little choice in that regard. Also, Garner's book (which is much longer and more detailed) gives much more advanced techniques. Overall, it is a very solid and readable resource for legal writers. It just is not the last word.

I own the book by Mr. Stark, and I also recommend the books by Bryan Garner, including, Elements Of Legal Style. The Stark book and the others, like the example I gave are useful for lawyers, law students, and paralegals, like myself, or anyone who writes on legal matters.

Stark's credentials as a practicing litigator and writing teacher give him great credibility, and he makes the most of it with this entertaining and useful book. It is superbly organized and easy to read. Plus, he gives lots of practical examples that drive home his points. A great book.

Steven Stark's intended audience is lawyers and he attempts to lead them away from the pompous, bloated and overstuffed writing habits inculcated in the legal profession for centuries. Not being a lawyer, I can't authoritatively state whether Stark's book is helpful or not to lawyers who write poorly - but I can state with assurance that any attorney who misses Stark's point is dense, if not stupid.

Stark's advice is not news to any technical, business or copy writer whose job is to evoke a specific and immediate response from their audience. Mail order copywriters (today called "direct response")have known for more than a century that they had but one fleeting chance to capture the attention of their intended audience and then had to keep it through the sheer power and - yes - artistry of their writing.
If you compare the points Stark makes with those of the great ad copywriters Caples, Kennedy and Schwab, you'll see they are almost identical.

Stark's adaptation of these points of effective writing is often amusing and to the layperson and definitely instructive. In fact, I would suggest this book to businesspeople who retain lawyers as a way to judge their effectiveness. After all, if your lawyer can't write a document you can understand, how do you expect them to write one that will convince a judge?

One example of Stark's approach is his instruction that "[b]efore you begin writing, ask yourself "What's the big idea?". This is no different than advertising great Rosser Reeve's pushing marketers to find the USP - the Unique Selling Proposition. And, in fact, I had to laugh because that thought struck me as soon as I read Stark's line quoted above - and in the following line, Stark cites Rosser Reeves and the USP.

I could go on for a long time praising this book. It is an insight into legal thinking, good and bad. It is a book on effective argumentation in any area. It is a book about writing well and convincingly.

Laywer or layperson, if you'd like to make your writing more effective in terms of persuading people to adopt your ideas, this is an excellent book and a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Jerry

I never expected to find a law book that could effectively use humor to make a point. But this one did it for me! It was full of great information on how to improve writing skills. It contains essential information about legal writing. It is very thorough but also very understandable. It takes an in-depth look at legal writing without losing the audience. I think it presents a very solid foundation on which legal writing can be built.

This book is a great tool for the over-verbose legalese writer, as well as the novice who needs to know how to LOOK as if they know what they're doing. It knocks legal writing down to the basics (face it - if you haven't got a valid case, no amount of purple prose is going to save it.) It also clearly defines the parameters of specialized legal writing (pleadings, writs, etc.)