(Last updated July 11, 2020)
Developing your skills as a legal writer is one of the most important components of your law school training. Below I include some guidelines applicable to all written submissions in my classes. Please review them closely and reach out with any questions.
Keep in mind that good writing includes knowing and writing for your audience. In my classes your primary audience is me. As such, the following guidelines identify what I find essential to clear and persuasive writing.
Formatting
One-inch margins on all sides.
Footnotes, not endnotes, in Bluebook format.
Text double-spaced, footnotes single-spaced.
12-point Times New Roman font for main text (12-point or 10-point for footnotes).
Do not include a cover page.
Include page numbers.
Include a heading with your name, the date of submission, and the course for which you are submitting the work. I will provide additional details as relevant to particular courses and assignments.
Quotes of more than 50 words should be block quotes: single-spaced, indented left and right, no quotation marks
If you cut and paste quotation marks they will be converted from curly quotation marks (“) to straight quotation marks ("). You should convert them back to curly quotation marks. For a helpful explanation of the distinction, see here: https://typographyforlawyers.com/straight-and-curly-quotes.html.
Place punctuation inside of quotation marks and footnote markers.
THINGS TO AVOID IN YOUR WRITING:
Failing to proofread (misspellings, typos).
Confusing possessive pronouns and contractions, e.g., “its” vs. “it’s.” The former is the possessive of “it,” the latter is a contraction for “it is.”
Forgetting possessive apostrophes, especially on nouns ending in “s” (e.g., “Holmes’s view” or “Holmes’ view, not “Holmes view”)
Using “which” when “that” is appropriate. See Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, at page 59: http://www.jlakes.org/ch/web/The-elements-of-style.pdf.
Cumbersome words (e.g., “utilize,” “operationalize,” “heretofore,” “impactful”).
The dangling “this” that lacks an object (e.g., “this is wrong” vs. “this objective is wrong”).
Ending sentences with a preposition.
Using two verbs when one will do (e.g., “This paper seeks to examine . . .” vs. “This paper examines . . .”).
Generally avoid throat-clearing introductory phrases like “It is important to note that . . .” Your discussion should make clear why it is important without you needing to tell me that it is important.
USE OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS
In completing the graded assessments for my courses (including all writing assignments), students may not give aid to or receive aid from others, nor use answers, ideas, or phrasing suggested by technology (e.g., artificial intelligence), except for spelling and grammatical corrections, or as expressly authorized in writing me.
Note: These writing guidelines are drawn in part from Professor John Inazu of Washington University’s helpful set of guidelines for his own students, https://www.jinazu.com/writing-guidelines.