“It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long
as you edit brilliantly.” – C. J. Cherryh
Many people think that
litigation involves a Perry-Mason cross examination or Jack Nicholson losing it
on the stand. We love courtroom dramas too
but the truth is, if you can handle it, is that most commercial cases resolve
after a judge decides a client’s case based on written submissions. This means that in most cases we are
professional writers, presenting our
clients’ cases not in the courtroom but through written briefs.
Although legal writing can
be technical, good writing is good writing.
The same techniques we use to persuade judges are techniques our clients
and friends can use to persuade their team, their boss, their board and their
clients. Here are 5 simple tips that
will improve your writing right now.
Outline Everything
We outline every brief before
we put pen to paper. In fact, we outline
almost everything. Letters, substantive
emails, even this blog post gets outlined.
Your outline does not have to be long.
The outline for this post is scribbled on the back of a magazine.
The outline does more
than organize your writing, it organizes your thought process. There have been a number of times when we
were headed in one direction only to go another after playing with an outline
for an hour. Bad writing is often a
result of fuzzy thinking. If you skip
your outline, it will take you twice as long to straighten yourself out.
The more detailed your
outline the more detailed your thinking.
Try to make the subject headings in your outline as detailed as
possible. Use a declarative sentence if
possible. Even if you decide not to
create separate sections in your piece, using headings in an outline will help
to keep you on track.
Learn to Stop Worrying
and Embrace the Ugly First Draft
Our best finished product
usually starts with an ugly, near stream-of-consciousness, first draft. Do not even consider rewriting sentences or
correcting grammar this round. We will
sometimes simply close our eyes while typing out the first draft to avoid the
temptation. It also has the added
benefit of not having to look at the scary empty white space on the page. Some of us will dictate a first draft.
The point is to let your
ideas flow unimpeded. Don’t worry about
missing punctuation, words or even sentences.
Once you grind out that ugly first draft, put it down for the day
without editing or refinement.
When you pick it up again
is when writing starts to get more fun.
You can start filling the inevitable gaps, improving flow and adding
pithy one liners where appropriate. If
you try to skip the ugly first draft, it never turns out as well.
Stop Using Passive Voice
We have all heard this
before but it is true. If you are not
sure whether you are writing in the passive voice ask yourself, “who is the
actor in this sentence?” For example,
“plaintiff’s motion should be dismissed.”
Who should be doing the dismissing?
You can’t tell from this sentence and so know it is in the passive
voice. The active voice doesn’t hide the
actor – “the judge should dismiss plaintiff’s motion” – and it makes for better
writing. It sounds better and provides
more information.
If you find yourself
using the passive voice often, consider whether you have an issue with your
writing or your thinking. When we find
ourselves using the passive voice, it is often because we do not fully
understand our topic and are using the passive voice as a crutch. Who is the actor in your sentence? If you do not know, you may need to clean up
your thinking.
Please, No Corporate
Speak, Made Up Words or Weblish
Corporate speak, made up
words and “weblish” continue to work their way into our lexicon. They do not have a place in your
writing. If you use corporate speak,
your reader may not understand you.
Using the word “solution” to describe a product (often software) is a
good example. “We sold the customer a solution that will help them extract
more useful information from their database.”
Rather than use a not so subliminal marketing tool, just describe what
you sold. If you use made up words (“I
would guestimate that…”), you risk looking like someone who does not have the command
of the English language needed to express themselves. If you use weblish, you sound like a computer
(“I don’t have the bandwidth for that…”).
You can usually avoid
these issues by asking yourself a few questions. If I used this term with a family member who
knows nothing about my business, would they understand me? If I looked in a dictionary, would this word
appear? Was this word or term in existence
in 1970? If the answer to any of those questions is “no”, then keep it off the
page.
Lose the Adverbs Unless
They Really Change the Meaning of Sentence
We are habitual offenders
of this rule and often slash “-ly” words from our first drafts. Overuse of adverbs tends to make your writing
wimpy and bloated. Use them sparingly
and only when they change the meaning of a sentence.
The first sentence of
this section is a good example. Removing
the adverbs “habitual” and “often” does not change the meaning of the sentence
and removing it makes for a stronger sentence: “We are offenders of this rule
and slash ‘-ly’ words…”
You can also reduce the
tendency to overuse adverbs by using more descriptive verbs. Rather than saying “he shook my hand very
firmly,” you could say “he crushed my hand.”
Using a stronger verb allows you to remove the adverb “firmly.”
Conclusion
Good writing takes time
but little changes can have an immediate impact. Try these the next time you have a scary
blank page in front of you.
