Brevity in Lincoln’s Writing

Professor Julie Oseid examines Abraham Lincoln’s writing in her article The Power of Brevity:  Adopt Abraham Lincoln’s Habits, 6 J. ALWD 28 (2009).  Based on her review of Lincoln’s writing, Oseid recommends that lawyers use his “habits of writing early, visualizing audience, and ruthlessly editing.”  (page 29)

Oseid starts with the premise that “[t]he goal of brevity should be clarity.” (29)  Lincoln, she says, described the opposite of brevity when he said that another lawyer could “’compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.’”  (29)  Brevity does not sacrifice precision, however, and a writer must be aware of concepts like the rhythm and sound in phrases like “’[f]our score and seven years ago.’”  (30)

Brevity has persuasive power.  (30)  Oseid quotes Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner on brevity in Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges:  “’Judges often associate the brevity of the brief with the quality of the lawyer.  Many judges we’ve spoken with say that good lawyers often come in far below the page limits—and that bad lawyers almost never do.’”  (30)

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The Power of One, Part Three: Lawyer as Advocate

Note: This is the third installment in a four-part series of blog posts; you’ll find part one here, and part two here.

Popular media most frequently depict lawyers in an advocate role.   Specifically, the media shows a lawyer parading in front of a jury, pounding on a lectern and giving a grand oratory performance.  These, incidentally, are things that appealed to me about being a lawyer.   I like theater, and I like competition.

I started my law firm clerkship with a bang with all the theatre and gamesmanship I could have wanted.   In the summer of 1999, I participated daily in a six-week jury trial that led to a $100 million verdict.  We were thrilled because the jury assigned no liability to our client, a third-party defendant.   The plaintiff, of course, was ecstatic.  I found the experience thrilling.  More so, because I hadn’t been part of the three years leading up to that six weeks.  And I didn’t play much of a role in the years of appellate proceedings that followed.  The pace of litigation takes years to learn, and a good while longer to figure out how to explain to a client.

But even at that nubile stage I could see that a trial “victory” comes at great expense.   The plaintiff-municipality had incurred enormous costs, not the least of which was diversion from present endeavors, that redressing the past requires.   And our client, while clearly a winner at trial, had incurred heavy costs as well.    The longer I practiced the more I learned that most civil cases boast no definitive victor.  More than 90% of cases settle before trial, typically requiring compromise on all sides.   Because of all the incentives to resolution, the rare case that doesn’t settle often has circumstances suggesting blame cannot be assigned so neatly.

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Catholic Principles of Good Stewardship of the Physical World

Catholic belief includes both the terms “dominion” and “stewardship” in discussing the relationship of human beings to the physical world.  Lucia A. Silecchia definitely prefers “stewardship.”

Drawing especially on papal encyclicals, including those of Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Benedict XVI, Silecchia said in the Simmons Lecture at Eckstein Hall on Thursday that stewardship is an appropriate model for care for the environment because the world has been entrusted to people and, as trustees, people need to put broader interests ahead of their own interests. Silecchia is a professor of law at Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Individuals need to put aside their narrow self interests to serve the larger, enduring needs of all people, Silecchia said. Indeed our own best interest is actually served by enlarging our sense of ourselves as members of communities and even the earth as a whole.

In a lecture titled, “’More Will Be Expected’: Catholic Social Thought and international Environmental Stewardship,”   Silecchia discussed basic principles of Catholic teaching that provide a framework for dealing with ecological issues.

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