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Book

Great Legal Writing

Lessons from Literature

Max Barrett

Published: 2023
Pages: 293

eBook: 9781787429512

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.

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.

Table of Contents

Front Cover Front Cover
Title Page 1
Copyright Page\r\n 2
Table of contents 3
Foreword 9
1. Lawrence: On morality, aesthetics and other matters 15
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: On the ‘laws’ of fiction and other matters 25
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: On bringing light to truth and other matters 37
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: On moralising, flippancy and other matters 43
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: On honesty, simplicity and other matters 61
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: On style and other matters 71
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: On the text as a story and other matters 89
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: On sincerity, originality and other matters 107
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: On theme, tone, truth, the task of writing and other matters 119
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: On pedantry, insight, jargon and other matters 151
1. Pedantry 151
2. Reading other texts 152
3. Jargon 154
4. Using foreign words 157
Key propositions 158
11. James: On the art and duty of writing, humour and other matters 159
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: On composition, pattern, sound and other matters 189
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: On literary quality, truth and the ‘rules’ of writing 211
1. Artistry and writing 211
2. Honesty in writing 212
3. ‘Laws’ of writing 215
Key propositions 218
14. Woolf: On quality in writing, ‘rules’ of writing and other matters 221
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.
Bryan A. Garner

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