Guthrie's guide to better legal writing

302 Pages·2021·21.44 MB·English

by  Neil Guthrie

_ G u t h rie’s Guide t =
o
BETTER
LEGAL
WRITING
Second edition
Neil Guthrie

Guthrie's Guide to Better Legal Writing
Second edition

S E C ON D E DI T ION
Guthrie's Guide to
Better Legal
Writing
Neil Guthrie
Guthrie's Guide to Better Legal Writing, second edition
© Irwin Law Inc, 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without
the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying
or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian
Copyright Licensing Agency), 56 Wellesley Street West, Suite 320, Toronto,
Ontario, M5S 2S3.
Published in 2021 by
Irwin Law Inc
Suite 206, 14 Duncan Street
Toronto, Ontario M5H 3G8
www.irwinlaw.com
ISBN: 978-1-55221-569-2 | e-book ISBN: 978-1-55221-570-8
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Guthrie's guide to better legal writing / Neil Guthrie.
Other titles: Better legal writing
Names: Guthrie, Neil, 1963– author.
Description: Second edition. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210124865 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210124903 |
ISBN 9781552215692 (softcover) | ISBN 9781552215708 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Legal composition. | LCSH: Law — Canada — Language.
Classification: LCC KE265 .G88 2021 | LCC KF250 .G88 2021 kfmod |
DDC 808.06/634—dc23
Printed and bound in Canada.
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v
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Contents
Preface xiii
acknowledgements xvii
chaPter one
Get Writing! 1
A. Introduction 1
B. So What Should I Write About? 2
1) Advice for Associates and Students 4
2) Some Guidance for the Reluctant Legal Blogger 5
3) Think of Your Reader 10
a) Plain Language 11
b) TL;DR 12
4) Keep Your Cultural References Current and Universal 13
5) Plagiarism 14
C. Get to the Point 15
1) Catchy Headlines and Openers 17
2) Capitals, Defined Terms, and Acronyms 18
a) Capitals 18
b) Defined Terms 19
c) Acronyms 20
3) CAPS 21
a) Don’t Shout at People 21
Guthrie's Guide to Better Legal Writing
b) Proper Names 21
m
vi c) Titles 21
m d) Abbreviations 22
e) Capitals for Important Words 23
4) Euphemisms 23
a) Bodily Functions 23
b) Breaking the Bad News 24
c) The Great Beyond 24
d) What This Means for Legal Writing
(There Is a Point to All This) 26
D. Word Choice 26
1) Banish Business Jargon 26
a) Metaphors That Were Once Vivid 27
b) Verbs That Aren’t (Or Shouldn’t Be) Verbs 31
c) Weird Nouns 32
d) Noun-Accumulation 32
e) Bad HR Jargon 32
f) Miscellaneous Jargon 34
g) Meaningless Platitudes 35
h) Awful Adjectives 35
i) Bad Business Jargon 36
2) Lawyerly Compounds 40
3) Lose the Latin 42
4) Repetition 43
5) Gender and Pronouns 44
a) Go Gender-Neutral 44
b) The Problem with Pronouns 46
c) Gendered Job Descriptions 47
d) Trans and Cis 48
e) Womxn 49
6) Other Terminological Issues 50
a) Race, Ethnic Origin, Disability 50
b) Corporate Names 52
E. Email and Other Correspondence 52
1) Email Pointers for the Millennial Generation (and Others) 52
Contents
a) Caution 53
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b) Content 53 vii
c) Courtesy 54 m
d) Emoticons and Emoji 55
e) Formality 56
f) Format 56
g) Swearing 57
h) Taming the In-Box 57
i) Titles 57
2) Email Disclaimers 59
3) Beginnings and Endings 60
a) Beginnings 60
b) I hope this email finds you well 62
c) Endings 63
d) Thanks! 64
e) Attention! 64
F. What Should It Look Like? 64
1) Think About Layout and Design 64
a) White Space 65
b) Headings and Sub-headings 65
c) Block Quotations 65
d) Bulleted and Numbered Lists 66
e) Boldface and Italics 66
f) Fonts 66
2) Footnotes 67
G. Navigating Social Media 68
1) Choose Your Distribution Channel Appropriately 69
2) Manage Your Presence 69
3) Keep It Short 69
4) Don’t Overdo It 70
5) Use Existing Content 70
6) Link Appropriately 70
H. And Finally: The Importance of Editing and Proofreading 70
1) Case Study 1: The Importance of Profreading 72
2) Case Study 2: Meh 73
Guthrie's Guide to Better Legal Writing
chaPter two
m
viii
Words Used and Abused 75
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A. Introduction 75
B. Misuse 76
1) Gruesome Twosomes 76
a) Redundancy 76
2) That and Which 82
a) That 82
b) Which 83
3) Waffle 83
4) Awful Lawyerisms, aka Legalese 86
5) However 95
6) Said, Same, Such 96
a) Said 96
b) Same 96
c) Such 97
7) Shall, Will, Should, Would, May, Might, Must 98
a) Shall, Will, and Must 98
b) Should and Would 100
c) Would Of 100
d) May and Might 101
e) Tense Accord 101
f) Journalistic Conditional 101
g) Journalistic Subjunctive 102
8) And/Or, And, Or 102
a) And/Or 102
b) Disjunctive and, Conjunctive or 102
9) Only, the Lonely 103
10) Who and Whom 104
11) All Well and Good 106
12) Respect and Regard 108
a) Regard and Derivatives 108
b) Respect and Derivatives 108
13) Between and Among 109
14) Noun Fatigue 110