Articles on
Get a broad overview of our articles by category.
Get a more granular view of our articles by tag.
As the nation’s first female Solicitor General, current Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has signed her name to several first-rate briefs. One of her best was in United States v. Stevens. The case began when Congress decided to ban the distribution of “crush videos,” which appeal to fetishists who enjoy watching high-heeled women
Are you a lawyer or a judge? Or do you just seek a writing muse? Look no further than Justice Elena Kagan’s majority opinion in Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools. Writing for a near-unanimous court, Kagan bolstered the right to special-education accommodations, in this case a service Goldendoodle named Wonder, for
Ted Olson and David Boies, opponents of California’s Prop. 8 had some unlikely allies to thank. Although the two men famously faced off in Bush v. Gore, their differences don’t end there. Olson argued against allowing women into the Virginia Military Institute; Boies once represented filmmaker Michael Moore. Olson served
When I fly both here and abroad, I often spot the SmartPhone-and-Bluetooth set poring over The Economist from the comfort of their airplane seats. Does the writing in that lauded publication offer any secrets about how to appeal to your client base? Here are five reasons the answer may be
One of the highlights of my 2011 summer was speaking to the Eighth Circuit Conference right after Justice Alito. My topic: Writing Highlights from the last Supreme Court Term. Here are seven of those highlights, Oscars-style. 1. Best Verb (tie) Samuel Alito, Snyder v. Phelps, dissent: And as far as culpability is concerned,
Is the country’s malaise affecting our judges as well? The Seventh Circuit has referred a lawyer to the state ethics board for possible suspension of his license. His sin? “Rampant grammatical, syntactical, and typographical errors” (full opinion). A federal judge in Texas once issued a “Kindergarten Order” comparing the lawyers
When Chief Justice John Roberts was a lawyer, he once wrote that determining the “best” available technology for controlling air pollution is like asking people to pick the “best” car: “Mario Andretti may select a Ferrari; a college student a Volkswagen beetle; a family of six a minivan. The choices
Who doesn’t need some inspiration these days? On the writing front, consider Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion in Buck v. Davis. Here are 25 ways to write like him. Or do so automatically. A Sense of Time 1. Replace full dates with phrases. Two months later, Buck returned to federal court . . . Within
Good legal writers form coherent paragraphs. Great legal writers like Chief Justice Roberts do far more: 1) create a linear progression of paragraph openers, 2) add interim conclusions, 2) sprinkle in higher-level logical transitions, and 4) use echoing and dovetailing to help all the moving parts snap together. I’ve mapped
Writing is vital to every part of your legal career. BriefCatch empowers you to stand out above the rest.