In case you missed it (Part 2)

Here are the topics this newsletter has covered in its first two months.

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The Elegant Legal Writing newsletter is now almost two months old. I am committed to building an audience for the newsletter and for the book I am writing, and I appreciate any help you can provide in that respect. If you think the tips I am sharing are useful, please share the newsletter with your networks:

In case you’ve missed any posts so far, here is a menu of what I’ve covered:

Introduction and motivation

• Elegant Legal Writing — introductory post

• Why Should Lawyers Invest in their Writing Skills?

Productive Writing and Editing

• Write “Shitty First Drafts”

• Edit in Stages

• Read Your Drafts Aloud

• Advanced Microsoft Word for Lawyers

• Use Readable Fonts

• Use the Pomodoro Technique to Work in Small Bursts

• Give your Body Something to Do While You Write

Mechanics and Style

• Convey Your Ideas Straightforwardly

• Avoid “And/Or”

• Avoid Overspecification and Synonym Strings

• Delete Unnecessary Modifiers, Especially Intensifiers

• How (and Why) to Use Em-Dashes

• Prefer Active Voice

• Simplify or Omit Dates and Locations

• Four Types of Coherence

• Move Quickly to the Heart of a Sentence

• Number Your Headings Correctly

• Use Informative, Full-Sentence Point Headings

• Use Ordinary Capitalization

• Find Creative Ways to Manage the Reader’s Workload

• Give Your Prose a Sense of Forward Movement

• Navigating Language and Gender

• Make Every Sentence Compact and Powerful

• Pay Attention to Rhythm When You Write

• Avoid Jargon and Legalese

• Master the Five Types of Transitions

• Write about Characters Performing Actions

Thank you for reading and sharing.

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Ryan McCarl teaches Advanced Legal Writing and researches artificial intelligence law and policy at the UCLA School of Law. He is also a partner at the law firm Rushing McCarl. You can follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter as well as his personal blog.