Product Description

The book has two underlying themes: (1) that legal writing ought to be more like other professional writing--more readable, more audience-focused, and more accessible; and (2) that lawyers ought to behave more like other writing professionals--by studying good writing, by consulting the best writing sources, and by constantly seeking to improve.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1870191 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 229 pages

From the Publisher
The essential tool for law professionals, students, and researchers seeking to sharpen their communication skills through effective, clear, concise legal writing.

Better Legal Writing grew out of materials created by attorney and law professor Wayne Schiess for a popular continuing legal education seminar sponsored by the University of Texas School of Law. The resulting manuscript covers a wide variety of legal writing topics, packaged into 15 neat, readable chapters.

Schiess is the director of the legal writing progrm at the University of Texas Austin School of Law, where he teaches legal writing, legal drafting, and plain English. A speaker in great demand, Schiess has published numerous articles on the writing spectrum and is also the author of Writing for the Legal Audience.

Experienced writers will find the information to be a timely reminder of good writing techniques to make their copy more succinct and easily understood. For the less excperienced writer, this work will prove to be extremely enlightening.

About the Author
Wayne Schiess is the Director of Legal Writing at The University of Texas School of Law in Austin. Mr. Schiess graduated from Cornell Law School and practiced law withthe Texas firm of Baker Botts LLP before joining UT Law.

His first book was Writing for the Legal Audience, and he has also published numerous articles related to legal writing, legal drafting, and plain language. He is a frequent speaker at CLE conferences and seminars.

Customer Reviews

What I use to teach advanced lawyers
. Prof. Schiess has written a fine book, one systematically treating the writing problems facing a lawyer. I found the most useful chapter one entitled "Better legal analysis." So far as I have found, his is the only useful treatment of this fundamental lawyer's skill. Also highly useful are his chapters, "Better persuasion," "Better legal drafting," and "Ethical legal writing."
. More than worth the money. If you are a lawyer who writes, which I think is every lawyer who breathes, use this book. A tremendous amount of knowledge put into a 224-page book.
. Maybe if law schools took Prof Schiess's advice and treated law school writing as a serious discipline, we wouldn't need this book or Bryan Garner's or the many other books urging lawyers to write better. But until then, buy this book.