ELW updates: a new audiobook, LinkedIn tips, and more

An audiobook version of Elegant Legal Writing will be released on April 16.

Mar 29, 2024

I have a few updates to share — but first, I must ask you a favor.

Please rate Elegant Legal Writing on Amazon.

If you enjoy my work, please take two minutes and give Elegant Legal Writing a five-star rating on Amazon. Writing a short review is even better, but just clicking the five stars to rate the book helps, too. Amazon reviews and word-of-mouth marketing (especially sharing the book and my posts with your networks) are the most important determiners of whether the book will continue its momentum and stay put alongside the books of Ross Guberman and Bryan Garner at the top of the genre.

I’ve been blown away by how well my book has been received since its publication last month. The early reviews have been glowing. Attorney Leah Tedford published a positive review of the book on Law.com, and I’ve received personal notes from lawyers, law professors, and others across the profession praising the book.

Order the Elegant Legal Writing book

Elegant Legal Writing is coming to Audible — and CD!

I’m excited to announce that Elegant Legal Writing is now available for preorder on Audible! As a lifelong fan of audiobooks, I’m so glad the University of California Press and Tantor Media decided to create an audio version of my book. The hardcover, paperback, and Kindle versions were released last month, and the audio versions will be released on April 16.

I learned yesterday that the audio version will be published not just on Audible, but also as an audio CD! That warms my nostalgic heart. Throughout my teens and 20s, I listened to books-on-CD (or NPR, or Oyez Supreme Court arguments) whenever I drove. Perhaps the seeds of Elegant Legal Writing were planted when I listened to Strunk and White’s Elements of Style at age 16; I’ll never forget the contemptuous way the narrator denounced the word “utilize” as an “abomination.”

Custom training webinars and workshops

One happy consequence of publishing Elegant Legal Writing has been that businesses and professors have been approaching me more often to ask about custom workshops, webinars, guest talks, and so on. I’ve even heard from a Fortune 100 company that wants to hire me to train their legal department.

Please email me if you’re interested in discussing webinars, guest appearances, or collaborations.

1000 follower thank-you

I started this blog in 2021, when I first started working on the Elegant Legal Writing manuscript after teaching an Advanced Legal Writing course at UCLA Law. Today, the newsletter has reached 1,000 followers. I’ve blogged since high school (2003!) and never approached such a milestone. Thank you for supporting and sharing my work. The more engagement I get, the more I’m encouraged to carve out time to write new material.

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Legal writing tips on LinkedIn.

As easy as Substack makes blogging, it still takes longer to write a post for this newsletter than to dash off a quick LinkedIn writing tip. I’ve also been gradually building a network of attorneys who weigh in on my posts or share their own great legal-writing content, which I comment on — leading to enlightening exchanges on my posts and theirs. If you’re a LinkedIn user, consider following my account or sending me a connection request since I’ve been posting new tips there a few times per week.

Here are a few of my recent LinkedIn posts that haven’t appeared on this blog:

Ryan McCarl’s recent legal writing tips on LinkedIn

Follow Ryan McCarl on LinkedIn

Ryan McCarl is a founding partner of Rushing McCarl LLP and author of Elegant Legal Writing (Univ. Cal. Press 2024). For more writing tips, subscribe to the Elegant Legal Writing newsletter and follow Ryan on LinkedIn. McCarl’s book is available on Amazon and forthcoming on Audible.

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