Legal Writing with Style

COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR IMPROVING YOUR LEGAL WRITING

Legal Writing with Style provides a succinct, witty, yet comprehensive overview of legal style that is grammatically correct and easy to read. Primarily intended for first-year law students, the book is also a good resource for attorneys who want a brush-up on important stylistic techniques for legal documents.

User friendly

Grammar Rules

Legal Organization

Exercises and Answers

Examples 1

Unlimited possibilities

Legal Writing with Style offers a quick, initial assessment of basics, with exercises and answers. It is loaded with colorful cartoons and interesting examples that bring to life the review of essentials. Not found anywhere else is a flow chart comparing and contrasting college essay writing to legal writing—a chart that helps professors point out similarities and differences, and a chart that allows new law students to understand how their writing skills will translate.

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Easy of use

Writing with Style covers sentences, problem words, and punctuation rules and options. It succinctly provides the information and base for the self-grading exercises that follow. Students may explore their problem areas in privacy; professors may use the brief explanations as a springboard for class discussion.

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  • "No matter how much you want to represent your clients, you can't be effective if you haven't mastered the basics of writing. Read this book. Master this basics, and then come work for a nonprofit to enrich your life.
    James C. Harrington
    Director, Texas Civil Rights Project
  • "For lawyers and students, this book is short, witty, and easy to use."
    Richard K. Neumann
    Hofstra Law School, author of Essential Lawyering Skills
  • “This book is a gem. If you are a legal professional looking to improve your own writing skills, start here. If you are a law professor searching for practical pointers to polish your students’ writing skills, stop your search here. No book accomplishes more with fewer words or a better sense of humor.”
    Walter Wright
    Texas State University
  • “An easy-to-use reference for writers of all ilk, Legal Writing with Style succinctly answers those pesky writing questions that plague us all. For law students and legal writing faculty, the book is a boon. A quick look at Legal Writing with Style will help students and practitioners avoid those writing mistakes and miscues that drive faculty and judges to distraction.”
    Jeanne Price
    University of Nevada Las Vegas
  • “All lawyers write; successful lawyers are those who write well ... a helpful resource for lawyers who want to refresh their writing or to improve the writing of those they supervise... the exercises that accompany each topic provide essential practice for identifying and correcting writing problems. Buy this book; you actually will use it."
    Sam Jacobson
    Willamette Law School, author of Legal Analysis and Communication
  • “... perfect for a legal writing class... focuses on the stylistic and grammatical issues with which law students are most likely to struggle... short exercises throughout reinforce the classroom or allow students to complete at home.”
    Kamina Pender
    Mercer University School of Law
  • "If you're ready to take your legal writing to the next level, then this short and sassy exploration of the style, ethics, and strategies that are the hallmark of truly readable and elegant legal writing is for you."
    Ruth Ann McKinney
    UNC School of Law, author of Core Grammar
  • “If you believe the journey to persuasive legal writing begins at Density Drive, circles Pretention Plaza and arrives at Arcane Avenue, then you will neither enjoy nor benefit from this book.”
    Bobby Hawthorne
    author of award-winning Radical Write!!
  • “Short, affordable, and full of great advice ... an abundance of examples will appeal to legal writers of all levels.”
    Lurene Contento
    The John Marshall Law School
  • “This compact text is designed for first-year law students, but practicing attorneys will benefit from this excellent review of basics and legal style. I especially appreciate the constant reminder that we must remember ethical communication--the cornerstone of legal practice."
    Broadus Spivey
    Spivey & Grigg, LLP, Former president State Bar of Texas
  • “A modern-day Elements of Style for law students ... perfect complement to any basic legal writing course book.”
    Nancy A. Wanderer
    University of Maine School of Law
  • “Why do students enter law school? To learn how to be lawyers. Lawyers write. This book reviews basics and teaches legal style, so students are prepared to write when they leave us. What’s not to like?”
    Shelley Broderick
    Dean, University of District of Columbia Law School
  • “Professors LeClercq and Mika zero in on the exact issues that cause lawyers problems and then provide clear solutions. This little book will become your trusty, dog-eared legal writing companion.”
    Tracy McGaugh Norton
    Touro Law Center, author of Interactive Citation Workbook
  • “This book’s distinction between undergraduate papers and legal memos guides novice students through the many unique requirements of legal writing.”
    Cathren Page Koehlert
    Barry School of Law
  • “Law students with science and math backgrounds may wonder if their grasp of basic sentence structure is good enough for legal documents. This book’s instruction, examples, and exercises will take them on the path to clear, concise legal writing. It is a must-have for students and lawyers alike.”
    Wendy Wagner
    University of Texas, author of award-winning Bending Science
Legal Writing with Style Cover

Legal Writing with Style

Problems with basic grammar, word choice, and punctuation may create embarrassing moments with office supervisors, clients, and court personnel. Now is the time to review those pesky rules and clean up muddled prose. This book helps do just that.

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The Authors

Experienced legal writing scholars and language experts Terri LeClercq and Karin Mika know that bad grammar and clumsy writing keep law students from articulating what they know in both class assignments and final exams. This book is thus the culmination of over 40 years of experience helping students and attorney clients to be grammatically correct, well organized, and free of ambiguities.
Terri Leclercq

Dr. Terri LeClercq

Dr. Terri LeClercq is a prolific scholar and nationally recognized authority on legal writing, research, and drafting. Professor LeClercq retired from the University of Texas School of Law after more than 20 years on the faculty, where she served as a senior lecturer in legal writing and the Writing Specialist. She was awarded Fellow, Norman Black Professorship in Ethical Communications in Law. She taught courses in Advanced Legal Writing, Editing for Editors, Legal Research and Writing, Negotiations and Drafting, and Real Estate Transactions and Drafting.

Dr. LeClercq has taught at a number of law schools and has guest-lectured at many others. Currently she teaches Legal Writing and Social Justice across the country, relating her experience getting arrested for civil disobedience to the creation of her graphic novel for inmates: Prison Grievances: when to write, how to write. As part of that mission, she directs the Prison Show Book Club, a Pacifica Radio outreach with over 100 faithful inmate readers sending in book reports for her evaluation.

Legal Writing Style is her third major publication about legal writing; she also has published over 100 articles about rhetoric and composition. Her focus is always on audience awareness, turning drafts into readable prose aimed at specific audiences.

She doesn’t just write about it—she lectures about clear writing any chance she gets. She is a frequent speaker at CLEs and a popular consultant to law firms, state agencies, and court personnel.

In 2006, her national peers awarded Dr. LeClercq their annual Legal Writing Award for “pioneering leadership, extraordinary vision, and outstanding service.”

For more information, go to www.legaleditorsink.com.

Professor Karin Mika

Professor Mika has been associated with the Cleveland-Marshall Legal Writing Program since 1988. A graduate of Cleveland-Marshall, Professor Mika began her Legal Writing career as a teaching assistant before becoming Assistant Director of the program until 2003. She has also worked as an Adjunct Professor of English at Cuyahoga Community College, where she taught Freshman Composition, as well as Poetry and Research Writing. Currently, she works as a research consultant for various firms and businesses in the Cleveland area with her primary expertise being Labor Law.

Professor Mika travels and presents nationally on various topics in the world of Legal Writing, including on topics related to integrating technology and multimedia into classroom teaching, as well as teaching those in the millennial generation. She has also been adviser to Cleveland-Marshall's moot court team, and has judged numerous moot court competitions. She has lectured on essay-writing technique for several bar review courses,and has written bar exam essay questions for both the California and Minnesota bar examiners. Professor Mika's areas of scholarly research are varied and she has published in the areas of Native American Law, Employment Law, Learning Theories, and Health Care.

Professor Mika is also active in both the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) and Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD). She is currently the Archivist for the Legal Writing Institute, and Chair of the AALS Section on Teaching. Professor Mika has previously worked as National Publicity Director for the William C. Burton Awards, a yearly event that honors excellence in Legal Writing.