The Elements of Legal Style | Bryan A. Garner

The Elements of Legal Style | Bryan A. Garner | Helped me get on the Law Review

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The Elements of Le...

	The Elements of Legal Style Bryan A. Garner Oxford University Press, USA, 2002 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

With expanded coverage in this new edition, The Elements of Legal Style features additional sections, many more examples, and a thoroughly researched appendix that contains 80 major statements on prose style--what it is and how to attain it. Inspired by Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, this book clearly (often wittily) explains the full range of what legal writers need to know: mechanics, word choice, structure, and rhetoric, as well as all the special conventions that legal writers should follow in using headings, defined terms, quotations, and many other devices. Garner also provides abundant examples from the best legal writers of yesterday and today, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Clarence Darrow, Frank Easterbrook, and Antonin Scalia.
If you want to make your writing clearer, more precise, more persuasive, and above all more stylish, The Elements of Legal Style offers the surest--and the most enjoyable--means to that end.

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Not just for lawyers

I am a physician who tested out of all college English to focus on science. Writing chart notes, scientific articles, or even parts of textbooks does not prepare one for the type of writing one must do when performing legal work.

Scientific-technical writing, legal writing, or the best-selling novel all require different writing styles. Mr. Garner's book must be a help to law students based on other reviews but importantly to me; it is very accessable to those who have never attended law school.

Legal style is a "style" that is important in the profession of law. If you do any work in this area at all, whether it is on the stand or writing essays, it behooves the non-lawyer to read this book. So, even though I agree with the glowing reviews from lawyers, this book may be even more important to those of us who must do legal work but have never been to law school.

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Helped me get on the Law Review

I read a review where someone said they read this and it got them on the law review. That was what I was looking for, so I bought it and the same thing happened to me (which is incredible considering my grades). This book gave me the tools to express what I want to say without trying to cram everything into one sentence. Somehow, after reading this book, I felt much less inhibited about my writing and more confident that I was using correct grammar, sentence structure, etc. Now that I think about it I'd like to read it again. I'd highly reccomend this to someone who wants to write legal papers that are actually readable and have some style.

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For those who wish to reach beyond the stars.

First introduced to Bryan A. Garner at one of his brief writing seminar, several years ago, I have since been a loyal reader of his works.

This book is (1) a reference book, (2) an invaluable resource, (3) more than just a grammar or style book ever thought of being, (4) chocked full of historical information and legal literary quotes, (5) presented in a humorous and accessible manner, and (6) the standard to which all legal writers should aspire.

Poor writing and the use of legalese have always been bug-a-boos of mine. And, over the lifetime of my legal practice, having to slave over thousands of statutes, briefs, decisions, motions, etc., has only intensified my belief that too few lawyers know how to write well, and that the legal profession should abolish the use of legalese from the practice of law.

In Mr. Garner, I have found a champion. In "The Elements of Legal Style", writers wishing to take their craft beyond the stars will find a valuable cache of information that will lay the foundations to improve their writing and persuading skills. He shows you how to remove the legalese from your writing, how to make your writing dynamic and exciting, and how to use your writing to better persuade. This book, along with "The Winning Brief", should be the foundation of your arsenal of writing tools.

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Shockingly good

In short, this is the first and only style guide that I have ever been excited to continue reading and share with others. It has really improved my writing.

Like HAL 9000 addressing the Harvard Club

This book gets a 5/5 for substance but a 1/5 for style.

To be fair, the writer of any book about writing has the heightened duties of the bomb-disposal technician or the internal affairs detective. Garner is fastidious to a fault and, given his audience, this is understandable. But the final product sounds like William F. Buckley, Jr. reading the phone book through Stephen Hawking's voice synthesizer. This is not boring, but distractingly awkward. I found myself paying more attention to the author's ecclectic phrase choices and mincing composition than his message. Garner weighs the advantanges of the spare "Attic" style of writing (Holmes) against the florid "asiatic" style (Cardozo), then somehow manages to adopt the worst of both of them.

(And did he really just say "asiatic?")

As a member and fan of the "California" school of legal writing (Kozinski) and rhetoric (Nancy Grace), I admit my distaste for this book is personal. The information itself is valuable. However, the content here overlaps substantially with "The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style (2d Ed.)." As a day-to-day reference work, that book is a much better bang for your buck.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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