
Great Legal Writing
Lessons from Literature
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.
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