So after a month of working at the National Law Journal, much of which I’ve been dissecting legal briefs, I have full-heartedly embraced the Rikki King theory that all lawyers should be required to take a journalism class – and learn how to write a damn sentence.
The average lawyer does not understand the following concepts…
The comma – These useful tools do not provide free reign to keep adding them endlessly as if you still have one coherent thought. When you have 30 clauses inside one sentence, it makes it all but impossible to follow. Use a period once in a blue moon.
The subhead – An introduction, body and conclusion are not enough. If you are going to blow up your two-page opinion into a 30-page novel then at least break down your argument into something resembling the five-paragraph essay, like most of us learned in sixth grade.
The English language – What is with all this latin? All these random legal terms slow writing progress to a halt. The language is well established, write your opinions in English please.
Eventually reading these briefs will get easier. But in the meantime I will rely on headache and getting more food to cure my daily mid-afternoon headache.
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