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Legal Writing: Style &
Organization
AUTUMN SCHOOL OF GLOBAL LEGAL SKILLS AND LEGAL WRITING 2020
PROFESSOR KIMBERLY HOLST
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR COLLEGE OF LAW
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Structure
of Legal
Analysis
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Analysis within a legal document
Memoranda
Caption
Legal Questions Presented
Brief Answers
Facts
Discussion (this is where the IRAC is located)
Conclusion
Briefs
Caption
Introduction
Facts
Arguments (this is where the IRAC is located)
Conclusion
Signature Block
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Substantive
Conciseness
Focus on legally relevant information
Facts
Legally relevant—what facts are
necessary to determine the legal issue
Necessary background—what facts are
necessary to provide the reader with
context to understand what happened
Rules
Synthesize rule frombinding authority;
use persuasive authority if needed
Illustrate rules by focusing on the
relevant facts, reasoning, and holding of
the precedent case
Analogies & Distinctions
Use specific and direct analogies
Analogize to specific facts
Only analogize to relevant facts
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Substantive
Conciseness
Looking at the dog bite hypothetical
and other materials—what are the
relevant facts?
What are the legally relevant facts,
reasoning, and holding fromthe
cases?
What facts should be analogized or
distinguished?
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Effective writing
Roadmaps
Signposts
Transitions
Thesis sentences
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Roadmaps
Gives reader the “big picture” overview of the paper/section
Overall structure of the document
Emphasize what’s important
Creates an expectation for the reader about where to start,
where to go, where to conclude
More sophisticated roadmaps avoid self-referential statements
like “I” or “This memorandum”—make the court the actor
Ex. In determining whether X occurred, the court will examine
three factors. First, ….
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Signposts
The words and phrases that keep readers
oriented as they progress through a piece of
writing.
Use language consistently—if you say
questions—keep using questions, don’t switch
to issues
Ex. This legal theory can be broken into three
issues.
◦ The first issue…
◦ Secondly, the issue of…
◦ The final issue…
Headings are also important tools in orienting a
reader as to where s/he is in the document.
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Transitions
The primary connectors between sentences.
◦ Generic transitions
◦ Orienting transitions
◦ Substantive transitions
Help tie the writing together
Guides the reader—helps them to follow your train of
thought
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Generic
Transitions
Used in all types of writing
Used to signal a shift in the reasoning
Place them before “the bend”—before
the shift in the reasoning
For example, therefore, in general,
similarly
X is the appropriate rule of law in this
jurisdiction. For example, in ABC case, ….
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Orienting
Transitions
Provides a context for the writing
Physically, logically, or chronologically
References to times/dates
References to cases
In X case…
During the past 20 years,
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Substantive
Transitions
Like interlocking links of a chain (usually within a paragraph)
Make a connection and provide content
Dovetailing—interlock ideas by creating an overlap of
language.
Common uses are when applying law to facts and applying
another court’s rationale
The defendant need not insure the plaintiff’s safety; he need
exercise only reasonable care. Potter v. Madison Tavern, 446 P.
2d at 322. If he has not exercised reasonable care, he has
breached his duty to the plaintiff.
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Thesis
sentences
Topic v. Thesis
Topic sentence—identifies what a sentence will be about
Thesis sentence—asserts a position. A paragraph centered on
a thesis sentence will support or explain this position.
At a minimum, every paragraph you write should have a topic
sentence. To write more effectively, you should be trying to
use thesis sentences rather than topic sentences where
applicable.
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Thesis
Sentences
In X, the court looked at the legal theory and
found that it was satisfied by ABC. The court
held…
•Topic sentence
•Focuses on the case and signals to the reader that the topic
of the paragraph will be how case X examined the legal
theory.
•Ties the paragraph to the case rather than the rule
When ABC are present, then legal theory is
satisfied. For example, in X, the court held…
Additionally, in Y, the court held…
•Thesis sentence (rule-based thesis sentence)
•Asserts the factors/circumstances needed to satisfy the
legal theory
•Focuses on the rule—ties the paragraph to the rule and not
the case
•Makes it easier to talk about more than one case as it
applies to the same rule
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Editing and Style
You should spend as much
time editing your work as
you spend writing it.
You need to practice
editing.
You need to train yourself
to write concisely and edit
with an eye to conciseness.
Write using your own style
and then edit to make it
more concise and direct.
CLARITY is the number one
goal and concern in legal
writing. (Don’t get too
focused in style techniques
that you impede the clarity
of your message.)
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Effective
Writing—
conciseness
There are a number of strategies to make your writing more
concise.
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Strategies
Don’t state the
obvious
“Now I am going to
discuss the cases that
are relevant to this
issue.”
Don’t overuse
quotations
Only use when necessary
or so well stated that
paraphrasing would not
capture the same
concept
Create a strong
subject-verb unit
This case is an
illustration of this point.
This case illustrates this
point.
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Strategies
Avoid Throat-clearing Expressions
◦ It is ________that (It seems more likely than not that)
◦ Probably
Don’t repeat yourself needlessly
◦ (current) trend
◦ (future) plans
Clean out the clutter
◦ Look out for extraneous prepositional phrases
Focus and combine
◦ The defendant lived in a room that was over the garage.
◦ The defendant lived in a room over the garage.
◦ Because of the fact that Because
◦ In the absence of without
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Strategies
BUT—watch out for excessive conciseness
Does it hinder the readability of sentences?
Are there “noun strings?”
A broad prior conviction evidence exclusion rule
A broad rule excluding evidence of prior
convictions
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Eliminating
Wordiness
and
Awkward
Phrasing
Use short sentencesUse
Avoid unnecessary modifiers (clearly,
obviously, etc.)
Avoid
Avoid “conversational” styleAvoid
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Eliminate be-
verbs
State of being verbs (am, is, are, was, were)
◦ Park’s advice was in contradiction with the available case law.
◦ Park’s advice contradicted the available case law.
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Avoid passive voice
Use passive voice sparingly and
intentionally
Passive voice is when the subject of the
sentence is not the “doer” of the action.
The child was bitten by the dog.
The child was bitten.
The dog bit the child.
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Diagnosing Passive Voice
Find Verb
Ask who or what is “verbing”
If subject is verbing, active voice
If subject is being verbed, passive voice
If verber (or pronoun for verber is not in sentence, generally
passive voice)
Common Markers of Passive
Voice:
To be +
Past tense form of verb
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Or, add “by zombies” to
the end of the sentence
◦ Makes sense—passive voice
◦ The child was bitten by zombies.
◦ The victim was struck on the face by zombies.
◦ Doesn’t make sense—not passive voice.
◦ The dog bit the child by zombies.
◦ The assailant struck the victim’s face by zombies.
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Avoid nominalizations
Don’t turn a verb into a noun if you don’t need to
-ion words
◦ The person was in violation of the law.
◦ The person violated the law.
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Eliminate
prepositions
Prepositional phrases can often be replaced by a more direct
statement.
◦ Anderson knew of the existence of the documents that
implicated the defendant in the crime. (15 words)
◦ Anderson knew documents existed that implicated the
defendant. (8 words) or
◦ Anderson knew implicating documents existed. (5 words)*
◦ *You may need more/less specificity—again, be clear.
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Suggestions for
better editing
Fresh eyes—give yourself time to step away from the
document (15 minutes to multiple days)
Start in the middle (more mistakes happen later in the
document)
Read on the computer and in print
Proofread multiple times
Read the document in its entirety
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Suggestions for
better editing
Use the tools on the computer
◦ Pronoun search
◦ Apostrophe and quotation mark searching
◦ Citation search
◦ Spell-check, and check for similar words (search statue,
probably, etc.)
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Suggestions for
better editing
The print copy
◦ Look at paragraph length—overly long paragraphs are easier to
spot in print
◦ Look at sentence length
◦ Review the verbs
◦ Review signals (transitions, thesis sentences, roadmaps)
◦ Ruler-read—use a rule under each line—breaks up your shortterm
memory and requires focus on the actual document
◦ Repeat!
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Suggestions for
better editing
Proofread revisions
• If words have been replaced, make
sure the sentence still makes sense.
• Read around the revised sections—
does the larger context still make
sense?
Read it out loud
• Read it aloud and out of order
• Pay attention to whether each
individual section makes sense
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