Great Legal Writing

Lessons from Literature

By (author) Max Barrett

Publication date:

16 February 2023

Length of book:

293 pages

Publisher

Globe Law and Business

ISBN-13: 9781787429499

Legal prose is often a more pedestrian venture than a novel or a poem. However, even the pedestrian can be done well. The views of the professional writers considered in this book identify how lawyers can write legal prose well, and sometimes even beautifully. This book provides key lessons on legal writing that can be gleaned from various leading authors of the past and brought to bear in crafting more polished legal texts. Among the great authors considered are Joseph Conrad, Guy de Maupassant, E.M. Forster, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, Robert Louis Stevenson and Virginia Woolf. Central themes identified are: Legal writing should never be too difficult to understand; Great writers have much to teach the legal writer; Good writing requires hard work; Professional jargon is generally best avoided; and The truth is always pure, often simple, and generally best expressed in plain English. This book contains invaluable guidance to help all those involved in legal writing to hone their writing skills, while providing an engaging tour through the works of great authors from the past. All after-tax author royalties from this book will be donated to the Ukrainian relief efforts of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.

Foreword 9 1. Lawrence 15 On morality, aesthetics and other matters 1. Writing engagingly 15 2. Didacticism and the ‘art’ of writing 17 3. Moralising 18 4. Detachment 19 5. Writing intelligently, coherently and honestly 21 Key propositions 23 2. Besant 25 On the ‘laws’ of fiction and other matters 1. Writing engagingly 25 2. Sympathy and writing 27 3. Selection in writing 27 4. Elevation of mind 27 5. ‘Laws’ of writing 28 Key propositions 35 3. Conrad 37 On bringing light to truth and other matters 1. Bringing light to truth 37 2. Different author types 38 3. Emotion, morality and writing 39 4. Pursuit of truth 40 Key propositions 41 4. Crawford 43 On moralising, flippancy and other matters 1. Types of text 43 2. Purpose of text 44 3. Effect of writing 46 4. Moralising 47 5. Flippant and colloquial writing 48 6. Self-discipline 49 7. Brevity, simplicity, etc 51 8. Illusion, truth and writing 53 9. Realising the author’s conception 53 10. Using foreign words 54 11. Digression 55 12. Life experience and writing 55 13. Amusement/humour in writing 56 14. The ethics of writing 57 15. Sympathy 57 Key propositions 59 5. De Maupassant 61 On honesty, simplicity and other matters 1. Originality 61 2. Expectations as to form 62 3. The pursuit of truth 63 4. Detachment 64 5. Exactness and carefulness 65 6. Using simple vocabulary 67 Key propositions 68 6. De Quincey 71 On style and other matters 1. Style and writing 71 2. Why is style important? 73 3. Writing versus speech 73 4. Carelessness in writing 74 5. Media influence on language 78 6. Unduly long or conditional sentences 80 7. Using foreign words 81 8. Different aspects of style 82 9. Punctuation 83 10. Footnotes 84 11. Repetition and brevity 85 Key propositions 86 7. Forster 89 On the text as a story and other matters 1. Legal texts as stories 89 2. Writing engagingly 90 3. Writing and voice 93 4. Detachment 98 5. Plot and writing 99 6. Writing a conclusion 101 7. Different types of writer 102 8. Patterns in writing and writing models 104 Key propositions 106 8. Hardy 107 On sincerity, originality and other matters 1. Sincerity 107 2. Originality 108 3. Detachment 110 4. ‘Laws’ of writing 112 5. Hardy’s observations summarised 114 6. Carelessness in writing 115 Key propositions 116 9. The Hawthornes 119 On theme, tone, truth, the task of writing and other matters 1. Plainness and simplicity 119 2. Tone 120 3. Morality and writing 122 4. Writing models and formulae 124 5. The steps to writing a text 125 6. The ‘art’ of writing 127 7. Writing powerfully 128 8. Transcendent text 129 9. Types of writer 130 10. Some common failures in writing 133 11. Legal texts as national literature 139 12. Writing engagingly 140 13. Condescension and children 145 14. What makes a good writer? 147 Key propositions 149 10. Hazlitt 151 On pedantry, insight, jargon and other matters 1. Pedantry 151 2. Reading other texts 152 3. Jargon 154 4. Using foreign words 157 Key propositions 158 11. James 159 On the art and duty of writing, humour and other matters 1. The ‘art’ of writing 159 2. Task of the writer 162 3. Amusement, humour and didacticism in writing 163 4. Superabundant judgments 167 5. Writing engagingly 172 6. Avoiding ornamental writing 177 7. Writing engagingly, recounting facts 179 8. Types of writing 181 9. Style and freedom in writing 185 Key propositions 187 12. Stevenson 189 On composition, pattern, sound and other matters 1. Vocabulary, word choice and grammar 189 2. Composing a text 198 3. Style 200 4. Key elements of style 203 5. Patterns in writing and writing models 204 6. ‘Sound’ in writing 205 7. What to include or omit 207 Key propositions 209 13. Trollope 211 On literary quality, truth and the ‘rules’ of writing 1. Artistry and writing 211 2. Honesty in writing 212 3. ‘Laws’ of writing 215 Key propositions 218 14. Woolf 221 On quality in writing, ‘rules’ of writing and other matters 1. Weaknesses of modern writing 221 2. Lifeless writing 237 3. Forms of writing 237 4. Honesty and writing 239 5. Stream of consciousness 240 6. Concision in writing 243 7. ‘Rules’ of writing 244 8. Long words and opening words 244 9. Writing engagingly 245 Key propositions 252 Afterword: Towards a code of good legal writing 255 Appendix: Writing for the young and vulnerable 269 Table of cases 283 Index 285 About the author 291 About Globe Law and Business 293

In this highly original book, Justice Barrett has drawn together an astonishing amount of material. This is an important contribution to the field of law and literature.