Public Seminars
Each year, LawProse offers more than 100 classes for lawyers and judges throughout the country, almost half of which are open to the general public. We’ve taken our workshops to every major city in the United States. We offer these three programs.
Advanced Legal Writing & Editing
Our most popular seminar focuses on analytical and persuasive writing, with most examples coming from actual memos and briefs. The day concentrates on the five major skills that good legal writers must develop to:
- frame issues that get the judge’s attention and state the case in 90 seconds;
- achieve a lean style that makes their prose stand out from most legal writing;
- smooth the transitions between sentences and paragraphs;
- quote authority most effectively; and
- get their projects down on paper most efficiently.
To practice what they’re learning, participants work on several short but challenging exercises throughout the day.
Advanced Legal Drafting
Our seminar on drafting contracts and other legal instruments will help even the most experienced transactional lawyers improve their documents — both stylistically and substantively. Highlights of the course include:
- how to avoid the most commonly litigated ambiguities;
- how to structure complex provisions to make them more readable;
- why it’s important to edit inherited forms, even “recommended” ones;
- when to use shall, must, and will — words that often bring grief to the parties; and
- how to revise a contract efficiently with our proven step-by-step method.
The Winning Brief
This seminar specifically for litigators comprises 100 tips, each illustrated with good and bad examples from motions and briefs filed in courts throughout the country. Both the class and its 516-page coursebook (now in its second edition and published by Oxford University Press) are full of pointers that even the most accomplished brief-writers will find useful. Participants learn how to:
- plan briefing projects for maximal efficiency — whatever the time constraints;
- capture a judge’s imagination with the first few words;
- avoid the mind-numbing conventions that make so many briefs boring;
- meet page limits with greater ease;
- counteract the exaggerated style of Rambo opponents; and
- persuade judicial readers more reliably.
Unlike Advanced Legal Writing & Editing, this course doesn’t require participants to do exercises. Instead, it covers much more material, and the coursebook supplies all the answers to editorial problems. It’s an excellent follow-up to ALW&E.
Advanced Judicial Writing
We’ve presented this workshop to judges in Alaska, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington. We also offer a one-day version for judicial clerks and staff attorneys.
The seminar emphasizes the techniques used by first-rate judicial writers. Participants examine the different ways to open judicial opinions, plus how and why those opening paragraphs determine the style of what follows. We show the 12 ways American judges typically begin their opinions and suggest which ways most effectively frame the determinative issues.
The seminar also demonstrates effective editing techniques: how to choose the best words, how to sharpen and tighten sentences, and how to bridge between paragraphs for better-flowing exposition. Some of the same principles are covered in Advanced Legal Writing & Editing and the Winning Brief, but this workshop focuses on the unique writing problems that judges face.