Legal Writing

Reporters: Elneri Sheryn B. Marquez, Christian Joy Carabbacan

JD 1-4

I. The Overview: Lawyer, Edit Thyself

There is no great writing, said Justice Louis Brandeis, only great rewriting.
All writers have a tendency to fall in love with their own prose so, an editor provides
fresh, needed criticism. An editor must be objective to be able to come up with an
honest feedback.
Lack of editing is one key reason that so much judicial writing is lengthy and
unfocused, not to mention boring.
Lawyers should be self-editing all their prose.

II. The Five Rules of Self-Editing

1. Print your text before editing.

2. The more time you but between drafting a document and self-editing it, the better
the edit will be.
3. Try to read the document out loud as you edit.
4. Apply many of the rules discussed in Chapter 2 in the self-editing process. (The
Basic Principles of Composition)
5. Check for typographical errors.

III. An objective eye cant hurt: The Seven rules for providing effective outside
editing

1. Separate the substantive edit from the copy edit.

2. Always be polite.
3. Make writers aware of alternatives.
4. When more than one editor work on a document, have a single editor convey all
the criticism to the writer.
5. Remove jargon from the document.
6. With important documents, use a fact checker.
7. Remember that the goal of editors is to make writers sound better but still sound
like themselves.

IV. 11 elementary principles of composition

1. Choose a suitable design and hold on to it. (Like the CRAC [Conclusion, Rule,
Analysis and Cases]
2. Make the paragraph a unit of composition. (One topic per paragraph).
3. Use the active voice. (The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than
passive.)
Example: I shall remember my first visit to Boston.
4. Put statements in a positive form.
Example: He was not very often on time VS He usually came late.
5. Use definite, specific and concrete language. (Prefer the specific to the general,
the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.)
6. Omit needless words. (Vigorous writing should be concise.)
7. Avoid succession of loose sentences.
8. Express coordinate ideas in similar form.
9. Keep related words together.
Example: He noticed a large stain in the rug that was right in the center VS He
noticed a large stain right in the center of the rug.)
10. In summaries, keep to one tense.
11. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.