Friday, August 25, 2006

Law school: what we make students read

Lucidity does not come naturally to most law students, perhaps because they have been forced in their legal studies to read so much bad writing that they mistake what they've read for the true and proper model.

--Tom Goldstein & Jethro K. Lieberman, The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well 30 (U. Cal. Press 1989).


[T]he current legal writing reformers undoubtedly do good, especially those who try to help lawyers avoid writing like a lawyer. Some, however, may miss the target altogether because they fail to realize that lawyers are being continually exposed to law books, the largest body of poorly written literature ever created by the human race.

--Frederic G. Gale & Joseph M. Moxley, How to Write the Winning Brief:
Strategies for Effective Memoranda, Briefs, Client Letters, and Other Legal
Documents
134 (ABA 1992).

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