The Federal Judicial Center is the research and education agency of the federal judicial system. By statute, the FJC is charged with: conducting and promoting orientation and continuing education and training for federal judges, court employees, and others; developing recommendations about the operation and study of the federal courts; and conducting and promoting research on [...]

Although legal writing expert Judge Mark Painter wrote an article entitled Legal Writing 201: 30 Suggestions to Improve Readability or How to Write For Judges, Not Like Judges, there’s one judge whose writing is always a pleasure to read: Hon Gerald Lebovits of the New York County Civil Court, Housing Part. Judge Lebovits isn’t your [...]

AttorneysInTransition.com is a new website from Law Bulletin Publishing Co. that focuses (not surprisingly) on issues of concern to lawyers whose careers are in a state of flux. While you’re there, check out my guest post, The Road Less Traveled: Working as a Contract Lawyer. Also, make sure you read this post for more details [...]

Although I have a very broad Westlaw subscription, I occasionally need access to materials that are outside my subscription plan. Whenever that’s the case, I always determine beforehand how much it will cost me to obtain the materials I’m after. Yesterday, while working on a project for Ben Glass (a successful Virginia personal injury and [...]

Thanks to my membership in Scribes – The American Society of Legal Writers, I learned about a free webinar entitled Ethics and Professionalism in Legal Writing: Brief Writing and Writing for Litigation. The webinar was presented by Stetson University College of Law. The panelists are Kirsten Davis, Associate Professor of Law and Director of Legal [...]

Update: I just found out that Bryan Garner will also be attending the luncheon and signing books. This is quite exciting for legal writing nerds like me! Update: Congratulations to contest winner Kathleen St. Onge of Halloran & Sage LLP in Hartford, Connecticut. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest! As you may know, Supreme [...]

I’ve always been a grammar stickler; heck, I have fond memories of diagramming sentences in 10th grade English class. Now, thanks to my co-blogger, Susan, I’ve found my soulmate (don’t tell my husband!): Grammar Girl. Grammar Girl (a/k/a Mignon Forgarty) is a freelance technical writer and editor who writes a blog and produces a podcast [...]

I have long wondered how you can avoid long sections of white space in text when you include a URL.  Word views the URL as one word and moves the entire URL to the next line, leaving the preceding line with too much blank space.  Eugene Volokh has a couple of suggestions to fix this.  [...]

For legal writing content that’s a little more challenging than the articles in Thomson West’s Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing, check out the Legal Writing Journal over at the Social Science Research Network. (To find this specific journal, go to http://www.ssrn.com/lsn/index.html and click on “subject matter journals” in the left sidebar). Like Perspectives, the [...]

I know, I know: most lawyers don’t view Thomson West as a benefactor to the legal profession. Mention West to a lawyer, and you’re likely to get an earful about how the company messed up a Westlaw bill once again, or how it insists on charging for paper updates for volumes that have long since [...]