Writing to Win: The Legal Writer
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From a master teacher, a results-oriented approach to powerful legal writing that communicates, that persuades—and that wins.Of all the professions, the law has the most deserved reputation for opaque, jargon-clogged writing. Legal education, which focuses on judicial opinions, not instruments of persuasion, is partly to blame. Yet forceful writing is one of the most potent weapons of legal advocacy. In Writing to Win, Steve Stark, a former teacher of writing at Harvard Law, who has taught thousands of aspiring and practicing lawyers, has written the only book on the market that applies the universal principles of vigorous prose to the job of making a case—and winning it.Writing to Win focuses on the writing of lawyers, not judges, and includes dozens of examples of effective (and ineffective) real-life writing—as well as models drawn from advertising, journalism, and fiction. It deals with the problems lawyers face in writing, from organization to strengthening and editing prose; teaches ways of improving arguments; addresses litigation and technical writing in all its forms; and covers the writing attorneys must perform in their practice, from memos and letters to briefs and contracts. Each chapter opens with a succinct set of rules for easy reference.No other legal writing book on the market is as practical, as focused on results, as well written as Writing to Win. Doubleday "Steven Stark's Writing to Win does what I would have thought impossible: It paves a genuinely pleasurable path to better legal writing. There are not many law students of practicing lawyers -- or very many judges, for that matter -- whose writing couldn't be measurable improved by the methods Stark sets forth with clarity and wit in this invaluable guidebook." -- Laurence Tribe, Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School "The book delivers what it promises. It teaches more than writing. It teaches you how to think, how to compose oral as well as written presentations. It even helps you at the start of the case, long before briefs are being written, to look for those facts that will win. It teaches you where eloquence can begin. Every lawyer, the experienced practitioner as well as the novice, should read it. It's a jewel of a book." -- Martin Garbus, Frankfurt, Garbus, Klein & Selz
IntroductionPt. IThe Fundamentals of Legal Writing1Ch. 1Organizing Your Material3Ch. 2The Rules of the Road19Ch. 3The Mechanics of Editing47Pt. IIThe Fundamentals of Argument for All Lawyers57Ch. 4The Art of Argument59Ch. 5The Role of Narrative in Argument74Pt. IIIWriting in Litigation89Ch. 6Writing the Facts91Ch. 7Writing Arguments116Ch. 8Writing Trial and Appellate Briefs150Ch. 9Writing Complaints and Answers168Ch. 10Writing in Discovery180Ch. 11Oral Argument from a Writer's Perspective192Pt. IVWriting in Legal Practice209Ch. 12Technical Writing211Ch. 13Writing Memos225Ch. 14Writing Letters and E-mail236Ch. 15Drafting Contracts and Rules246Conclusion: The Real Damage of Bad Legal Writing259Appendix267The Thirteen Rules of Professionalism in Legal Writing269Submitting Samples for Inclusion in Future Editions of This Book270Bibliography271
