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A Lawyer Writes: A Practical Guide to Legal Analysis
Like the very popular first edition, this second edition puts the reader in the place of a first-year attorney faced with real life assignments. In doing so, it teaches law students not only how to succeed in law school, but also how to succeed in the practice of law. Using graphics and visual samples, the book shows best practices in both traditional and electronic environments. Speaking to its readers in a straightforward manner, A Lawyer Writes communicates essential skills and theories so that they will be retained for a lifetime of legal practice.
There are two significant changes in the second edition of A Lawyer Writes. First, two new chapters have been added: Chapter 17, Client Letters, and Chapter 19, The Transition from Objective to Persuasive Writing. (What was Chapter 17, Professional E-mails, will appear as Chapter 18.) In addition, section 8.3, Applying the Law: Counter-Analyses, has been re-organized, but the content has remained the same. All other updates to the book are smaller edits that fix errors, create consistency, or further clarify an existing idea.
A teaching website is available. To request the link and login information, please email meade (at) cap-press (dot) com.
The following book reviews are from the first edition.
“A Lawyer Writes made a great difference in my teaching this year. The book explains concisely the expectations of lawyers regarding organization of legal analysis and then explicitly shows law students how to meet those expectations. The frequent examples are a great complement to the clear and accessible text.” — Suzanne Rowe, Luvaas Faculty Fellow 2008-09, Director, Legal Research and Writing, Associate Professor of Law, University of Oregon
“One of the best parts of A Lawyer Writes is its chapter explaining rules. After my students read that chapter, they really seemed to understand the concept that rules can be stated implicitly in the cases, and that it was their job to make those rules explicit for their readers. The book also provides a number of excellent, easy-to-understand examples in every chapter, which the students found very helpful.” — Alison Julien, Associate Professor of Legal Writing, Marquette University Law School
“A Lawyer Writes is the perfect book for the first semester of Legal Writing. It explains the foundations of legal reasoning, illustrates those foundations with practical examples, and is an exemplary model of its own lessons about good legal writing.” — Steve Johansen, Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School
383 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 20, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 20, 2009
Legal writing = lamest form of communication ever. Wait, I'll write that legally:
A court of me is very likely to find that legal writing is excessively lame. Under my law, writing is lame when it bores the reader and fails to efficiently inform. Me. Sartre defines boredom as a state where there is simultaneously too much and not enough. Being and Nothingness. Writing fails to efficiently inform when it follows a mindlessly rigid structure that requires redundancy. Me. In legal writing there are simultaneously too many words and not enough interesting things to say. Likewise, the strict rules regarding word choice in legal writing require a writer to repeat words and phrases in a manner that does not effectively communicate actual meaning. Therefore, a court of me, very likely, will find that legal writing is lame.
End legal writing.
I should say, one of the professors at the University of Oregon helped write this book, and I really like her, so I'm not against the book, just legal writing. It's so much lamer than twitter, it's not even funny. That's another point: twitter is funny, legal writing is not. Maybe they'll let me break out of writing oppression soon. If not, there's always Canada. Student loans can't get me in Canada, right? That should be the first thing they tell you in law school.
A court of me is very likely to find that legal writing is excessively lame. Under my law, writing is lame when it bores the reader and fails to efficiently inform. Me. Sartre defines boredom as a state where there is simultaneously too much and not enough. Being and Nothingness. Writing fails to efficiently inform when it follows a mindlessly rigid structure that requires redundancy. Me. In legal writing there are simultaneously too many words and not enough interesting things to say. Likewise, the strict rules regarding word choice in legal writing require a writer to repeat words and phrases in a manner that does not effectively communicate actual meaning. Therefore, a court of me, very likely, will find that legal writing is lame.
End legal writing.
I should say, one of the professors at the University of Oregon helped write this book, and I really like her, so I'm not against the book, just legal writing. It's so much lamer than twitter, it's not even funny. That's another point: twitter is funny, legal writing is not. Maybe they'll let me break out of writing oppression soon. If not, there's always Canada. Student loans can't get me in Canada, right? That should be the first thing they tell you in law school.
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December 19, 2017Not as engaging as you'd think, what with the snappy title and all.
November 12, 2019
Very practical, will possibly reference back to this during internships !
December 26, 2021
Read this cover to cover (for real) and found it super helpful during the semester's LRW class.
April 18, 2022
Would not have survived writing in law school without this and plan to keep it into practice. Great examples.
November 6, 2025
This was a good book to learn from my writing is better now and more like a lawyer. Thumbs up go law school!
May 19, 2015
Maybe this book is good for a licensed attorney. The author writes assuming the reader already knows certain aspects of law. Unfortunately, the book is usually used as a first year book for 1Ls. This means the students are still learning the concepts, they are already assumed to know, as they are reading it. This was very confusing and caused our professor to change books.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews