Cut It Out

EditingKnow how and when to cut words from your sentences during the editing process?  Here are some links to help.

Bryan Garner’s April 2014 ABA Journal magazine article provides a good list of unnecessary phrases.  Garner recommends “axing” words like “herein” from legal documents.

WordRake is an editing program that allows you to upload a document and receive line edits on concision and clarity.  This blog tested the program on some sample Supreme Court authority with favorable results.  Also check out the WordRake blog for editing advice.

One easy starting point for editing is to look for and eliminate “there is” and “it is” from your sentences.  These phrases add meaningless fluff at the most important point of a sentence—the beginning—and often signal the passive voice and nominalizations.  This blog suggests ways to streamline your writing by eliminating “there is” and “it is” (or the past tense version) or phrases like “given the fact that” or “in light of the fact that.”

Continue ReadingCut It Out

Storytelling for Lawyers

An excellent primer on narrative theory for lawyer-storytellers has now appeared. I refer to Philip N. Meyer’s recently published Storytelling for Lawyers (Oxford University Press, 2014), which is available in Kindle, hardcover and paperback versions.

Meyer convincingly makes the point that much of what lawyers do is storytelling. Whether they are presenting cases in the courtroom or representing clients in contract negotiations, lawyers tell stories. Furthermore, a lawyer’s success depends to a surprising extent on his or her skills as a storyteller.

Meyer suggests lawyers’ stories are relatively straightforward and more like those in Hollywood movies than those in literary novels. However, all stories—simple or complex—include a setting, characters, a plot, a point of view, and a narrative voice. Meyer demonstrates how conscious attention to each of these components can improve a story.

I found especially interesting Meyer’s observation that careful crafting of a story’s beginning greatly improves the likelihood of a story’s conclusion being effective and convincing. He illustrates this point with insightful commentaries on the closing arguments offered by Jeremiah Donovan on behalf of Louis Failla and Gerry Spence on behalf of Karen Silkwood.

Overall, Meyer’s book is a great story about lawyers telling stories. He brings his lawyer-storytellers to life and critiques their narrative efforts with great delight. I welcomed his reminder that the best lawyers can be and are artists.

Continue ReadingStorytelling for Lawyers

The Problem of Having Really Good Plaintiff Cases

If you handle plaintiff cases your dreams are of what I call the “Holy Trinity” cases: Great Liability, Big Damages, and a Well Insured Deep Pocket Defendant. And, even better, you would think, is one after another of those cases. But, as they say, in every silver lining there is a black cloud.

A recent three-week trial provides lessons for long-term career development for trial lawyers principally handling cases for plaintiffs. Since my practice consists of two-thirds defense and one-third plaintiffs (including one nine figure verdict for a plaintiff) I can give you a view from both sides of the “v”. In this case I happened to be defending.

The injuries were initially catastrophic with the plaintiff having “died” (a bit of exaggeration by plaintiff’s counsel in opening statement, but nonetheless she did have a very low pulse and respiration rate) in the ambulance to the hospital. She had been crushed between my client’s semi-tractor trailer and a stopped car in a sorority car wash taking place in a shopping center parking lot. “Squished” was plaintiff’s counsel favorite word in the trial.

Continue ReadingThe Problem of Having Really Good Plaintiff Cases