The (New) Legal Writer


"A collection of resources for lawyers and other writers."

Author: Raymond Ward is an appellate lawyer at Adams and Reese in New Orleans. He also authors Minor Wisdom and contributes to Appellate Law & Practice.

Blawg Related Categories: Law Practice Management • Legal Technology • Legal Research and Writing

Recent Posts from The (New) Legal Writer


  • Prevision

    Writing guru Roy Peter Clark has come up with a great word for the mental work done before putting fingers to keyboard: prevision. It’s the first of three stages in the writing process: prevision, vision,…

  • Of headnotes and issue statements

    Ernie the Attorney had an interesting post yesterday asking how the headnotes in West digests encourage lawyers to write long-winded sentences. The answer: the headnote authors follow the senseless convention of trying to cram all…

  • Sure, you can split an infinitive, but this is ridiculous.

    This blog’s official position on split infinitives is that they’re okay. The Star Trek catch phrase — “to boldly go” — is A-okay with us. But please, please don’t use your freedom from the no-split-infinitives…

  • Two things wrong with this headline

    New Orleans CityBusiness features this headline: N.O. area shed 1,800 jobs over the year. I see two things wrong with this headline. The subject, “area,” is singular, and should therefore take a singular verb. (The…

  • Great legal-writing advice from a non-lawyer: What are you trying to accomplish?

    What Ken Davis said.

  • Send a message to the bookstores about usage guides

    SPOGG (Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar) reports receiving this e-mail from Bryan Garner: I have a favor to ask of you as a loyal reader: In the next few hours or days, would…

  • Appellate-practice materials from my “Bridging the Gap” presentation

    This afternoon, I’m joining Justice Harry T. Lemmon (retired) in presenting the appellate-practice hour of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Bridging the Gap seminar for newly minted lawyers. For those participants and others who may…

  • Drunk and Tight

    I often blog with a tumbler of Dewar’s nearby. So I should pay particular attention to John McIntyre’s A Sot’s Guide to the Elements of Style.

  • Plagiarism: An issue for every lawyer

    Law professors, judges, and practicing lawyers have one thing in common besides a law degree: All of us write. And in writing, we often borrow from the writings of others. Indeed, a certain amount of…

  • Conserving the canvas: Increasing legibility while decreasing tree mortality

    If you have some influence in creating or amending court rules governing the form of pleadings and briefs, this post is for you. In the process of churning out vast quantities of paper, lawyers really…