"Your brief writing conveys not only your argument to the court, but it also conveys a sense of your credibility and the care with which you put together your case."
“Judges often associate the brevity of the brief with the quality of the lawyer.”
When a lawyer's writing lacks clarity, "the lawyer's language is a confession of incompetence."
"The best you can write will be the best you are. The author's character is read from title-page to end."
"The way you write reflects the way you think, and the way you think is the mark of the kind of person you are."
“Pity the reader.”
“The reader's part must never become a strain."
“The reader [is] in serious trouble most of the time, floundering in a swamp, and it [is] the duty of anyone attempting to write English to drain this swamp quickly and get the reader up on dry ground, or at least to throw a rope."
“Writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate to the left or right, the readers will most certainly go into it."
"The reader has a job to do. The prime literary virtue is ease of parsing because writing is an instrument for delivering information with maximum efficiency and in such a way as to place the smallest possible burden upon the reader, who has other more important burdens to bear."
“The most important thing in a brief is clarity."
Sacrifice "literary elegance, erudition, sophistication of expression if they detract from clarity.”
"The indispensable characteristic of a good writer is a style marked by lucidity."
Clarity helps readers "understand well and quickly for the purpose of making immediate use of what [they are] reading. [Clarity creates] a perfectly clean and un-distorting window [that does] not draw attention to itself.”
"The overarching objective of a brief is to make the court's job easier. What achieves that objective? Brevity.”
“Unnecessarily long briefs are counterproductive. They clog a good argument with excess verbiage. They tend to lose their persuasive edge as well as their credibility."
"Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."
"Clutter blunts the painful edge of truth. Writing is like a good watch—it should run smoothly and have no extra parts. Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it."
"A brief that is verbose and repetitious will only be skimmed; a brief that is terse and to the point will likely be read with full attention. So a long and flabby brief, far from getting a judge to spend more time with your case, will probably have just the opposite effect. Good lawyers often come in far below the page limits—bad lawyers almost never do. Every word that is not a help is a hindrance because it distracts. A judge who realizes that a brief is wordy will skim it; one who finds a brief terse and concise will read every word."
"Simple, direct language is more persuasive than abstract language. First, simple language is more easily grasped. Second, concrete, simple language forces the writer to focus his thinking and sharpen the argument. Third, abstract language can be easily waved aside by someone who is leaning the other way. So simplifying and clarifying is really the essence of advocacy."
"The art of art, the glory of expression is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity."
"In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it."
"If the same idea can be expressed in a simple way or in a complex way, the simple way is better and, paradoxically, it will typically lead readers to conclude that the writer is smarter."
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
"Readers may understand individual sentences, but if they cannot see how that
series of sentences `hangs together,' then no matter how clear individual
sentences are, readers will not feel that they add up to a cumulatively coherent passage."
“Abandon interesting and erudite asides if they sidetrack the drive toward the point you are making.”
“The writer's object should be to hold the reader's attention. I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning until the end."
“Nothing can make up for the lack of definiteness."
"If you have a nail to hit, hit it on the head."
"The same word should be used to refer to a particular key concept, even if elegance of style would avoid such repetition in favor of various synonyms.”
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