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Fretting over Plain English? Just pick up one of Warren Buffett’s annual reports for Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett’s clear, fresh style is one reason the SEC invited him to write the preface to its Plain English Handbook. In a speech at the National Press Club, former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt explained how
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
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
The U.S. Supreme Court’s current ideological divide may be the sharpest we’ve seen in a long time. Yet the justices do unite in one key respect: The current court boasts some of the best opinion writers in American legal history. Take the opinions from the tumultuous last term. From those
It’s hard to get lawyers and judges to agree on much these days, but here’s one exception: that Justice Elena Kagan is a terrific writer. Take her majority opinion in Allen v. Cooper. Kagan’s opening facts might already reel you in:
When you hear the name George Conway III, do you think “Kellyanne” or “That Twitter Guy”? My goal is to make the association “Peerless Securities Litigator” or “Crack Legal Writer.” Let’s take two routine briefs Mr. Conway signed at Wachtell: a reply brief in a case about quartz countertops and a motion to dismiss for
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