I detest bad legal writing. (I detest bad writing of all kinds, but this is a law blog, so I’ll limit my rant to legal writing.) I don’t like to read it and I hate it when I (sometimes?) write it. I’m not a great writer, but I appreciate lawyers and legal scholars who can write clear, concise prose. Unfortunately, although writing is an essential element of legal practice, many lawyers do not write well.

If you care about legal writing, and you should, the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing recently published a short piece you might want to read: Legal-Writing Myths, by Judge Gerald Lebovits.

I knew after reading the first paragraph that I was going to like Judge Lebovits’s article. His first sentence rejects the prohibition on beginning a sentence with a conjunction. His second sentence rejects the prohibition on ending a sentence with a preposition. And [remember his first sentence?] his third sentence rejects the prohibition on splitting infinitives.

I was not disappointed as I read the rest of the article. In just a few pages, Judge Lebovits artfully rebuts ten myths of legal writing.

My favorite myths:

  • “Writing a lengthy brief is harder and takes more time than writing a short one.”
  • “Good legal writers rarely need time to edit between drafts.”

Check it out. It’s definitely worth reading. Judge Lebovits has written a number of other interesting articles on legal writing. You can find many of them here.