Principles of Persuasive Writing:
Creating the Perfect Brief
Pamela V. Keller
University of Kansas School of Law
September 25, 2014
Principles we can cover in an hour
• How to improve clarity and flow
• How to modernize your brief’s appearance
• A few grammar tips to impress
CLARITY
• IMPROVING CLARITY AND CHANGING TEMPO
– WATCH YOUR SENTENCE STRUCTURE
– ACTIVE SENTENCES
• CONNECT YOUR IDEAS FOR YOUR READER
– DOVETAIL
– TRANSITION WITH SUBSTANCE
• GET RADICAL
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Which Do You Prefer?*
• Once upon a time, as a walk through the
woods was taking place on the part of Little
Red Riding Hood, the Wolf’s jump out from
behind a tree occurred, causing her fright.
• Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood was
walking through the woods, when the Wolf
jumped out from behind a tree and frightened
her.
*Example from Joseph M. Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (9 ed. 2007).
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Sentence Structures
• Have a clearer ACTOR
– Make main characters your subject
– Use simpler subjects
• Have more ACTION
– Make important actions verbs, not nouns
Put Subject and Verb Close Together
• The defendant filed the summary judgment
motion.
• The defendant (subject) filed (verb) the
summary judgment motion (object).
• To make your writing easy to understand,
most of your sentences should follow the
basic order of subject, verb, object.
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Make Main Characters Subjects*
(use simpler subjects)
• Once upon a time, as a walk through the
woods was taking place on the part of Little
Red Riding Hood, the Wolf’s jump out from
behind a tree occurred, causing her fright.
• Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood was
walking through the woods, when the Wolf
jumped out from behind a tree and frightened
her.
*Example from Joseph M. Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (9 ed. 2007).
th
Make Important Actions Verbs
• Once upon a time, as a walk through the
woods was taking place on the part of Little
Red Riding Hood, the Wolf’s jump out from
behind a tree occurred, causing her fright.
• Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood was
walking through the woods, when the Wolf
jumped out from behind a tree and
frightened her.
Writing for Grown-Ups*
• The Federalists’ argument in regard to the
destabilization of government by popular
democracy was based on their belief in the
tendency of factions to further their self-interest
at the expense of the common good.
• The Federalists argued that popular democracy
destabilized government because they believed
that factions tended to further their self-interest
at the expense of the common good.
*Example from Joseph M. Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (9th ed. 2007).
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Writing for Grown-Ups
• The Federalists’ argument in regard to the
destabilization of government by popular
democracy was based on their belief in the
tendency of factions to further their self-interest
at the expense of the common good.
• The Federalists argued that popular democracy
destabilized government, because they believed
that factions tended to further their self-interest
at the expense of the common good.
Edit these sentences to improve clarity and flow
• The line which was drawn by ABA Model Rule 7.3
is not the same as the First Amendment line that
was drawn in the lawyer solicitation cases
decided by the United States Supreme Court.
• If the alleged defamation concerns a public
figure, then malice must be shown.
• Initiation with a potential client by a lawyer is
prohibited by ABA Model Rule 7.3 in those
instances in which the primary motivation for the
initiation of personal contact is the lawyer’s hope
of personal financial gain.
Make Connections For
Your Reader
• Connect ideas for your reader from one
sentence to the next and from one paragraph
to the next
• “Dovetail”
– Dovetailing is the overlap of language between
two sentences that creates a bridge between
those two sentences
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Make Connections for
Your Reader
• Think about how two sentences are related and
make that relation clearer
– Usually done by adjusting the substance
• Can also “dovetail” by:
– Repeating key words
– Moving the connecting idea to the end of the first
sentence and the beginning of the second sentence
– Using “hook words” (this, that, these, such) and a
summarizing noun
Praeger began serving as a Lawrence surgeon in 1977,
back in the days when doctors all over the city would get a call at
any hour from the hospital’s emergency department to deal with
everything from a broken arm to a heart attack. Back then, there
weren’t doctors assigned full-time to the emergency room –
only nurses who had the phone numbers of every doctor in the
city.
That arrangement has changed, but the life of a surgeon
still is ruled by the phone call from the hospital that always
comes. It is just a matter of when. And when it does, you stop
what you are doing and rush to the hospital. If it is a simple
emergency appendectomy, you tell your spouse you’ll maybe
return in three hours. A bad intestine? Better put the dinner in
the fridge.
Dinners will be a little warmer now for Praeger, who
officially retired from practice last week. Time with his . . .
Taken from Lawrence Journal World, March 2014
Praeger began serving as a Lawrence surgeon in 1977,
back in the days when doctors all over the city would get a call at
any hour from the hospital’s emergency department to deal with
everything from a broken arm to a heart attack. Back then,
there weren’t doctors assigned full-time to the emergency room
– only nurses who had the phone numbers of every doctor in the
city.
That arrangement has changed, but the life of a surgeon
still is ruled by the phone call from the hospital that always
comes. It is just a matter of when. And when it does, you stop
what you are doing and rush to the hospital. If it is a simple
emergency appendectomy, you tell your spouse you’ll maybe
return in three hours. A bad intestine? Better put the dinner in
the fridge.
Dinners will be a little warmer now for Praeger, who
officially retired from practice last week. Time with his . . .
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Edit these paragraphs to make the connections clearer
• A foreseeable risk, one that public officials knew of or
should have known of, can be established through
objective evidence. Injuries other plaintiffs sustained
in similar situations would be an example. A jury
would determine the foreseeability of the harm that
the defendant had a duty to reasonably guard against.
• Under Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 26(b), parties may obtain
discovery on any non-privileged matter. One party
may, however, seek a protective order under Rule
26(c). This can protect a party from “undue burden or
expense” if the party shows good cause. Courts have
discretion to issue a protective order specifying the
time and place of a deposition.
Get Radical
• COMES NOW the Plaintiffs, TSC Operating Limited Partnership
(hereinafter “TSC”) and Littus LLC (“Littus”), by and through
their attorneys of record and file this, TSC and Littus’s
Response of TSC Operating Limited Partnership and Littus, LLC
to Motion of Henry H. Hineman for Stay Pending Appeal and
would respectfully show to the court as follows:
• Plaintiffs, TSC Operating Limited Partnership and Littus LLC,
respond as follows to Defendant Henry Hineman’s motion for
stay pending appeal:
Plain Language
• http://lawyerist.com/lawyerist/wpcontent/uploads/2009/12/Judge-KresselOrder-Preparation-Guidelines.pdf
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MODERNIZE YOUR BRIEF’S
APPEARANCE
• Typography – the visual component of the
written word
• www.typographyforlawyers.com
• Matthew Butterick, Typography for
Lawyers: Essential Tools for Polished and
Persuasive Documents (2010)
• CHOOSE a font
– Times New Roman is an absence of choice
– Workhorse font
– Consider instead: Baskerville, Century
Schoolbook, Goudy Old Style, Gill Sans,
Hoefler Text, Palatino, Helvetica.
– Use a proportional font – NOT Courier.
• DON’T FEAR WHITE SPACE
– Shorter lines are more comfortable to read than
longer ones
– Aim for average line length of 45-90 characters
– If rules permit, increase your margins
• For 8.5”-11” paper and 12-point font, you
should have left and right margins of 1.5-2
inches
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• DON’T UNDERLINE
– Leftover from typewriter days
– Underlined text is hard to read
– Bold or italics are preferred
• RECONSIDER LINE SPACING
– Optimal line spacing is between 120% and 145%
of font size
– If you are working with a 12-point font, the
optimal line spacing is roughly 15-17 points.
• Put one space between sentences
– Two spaces is a holdover from typewriting era
– One space is the custom of professional
typographers and the consensus view of
typography authorities
– Professionally published books, newspapers, and
magazines use one space
– In agreement:
• Bryan A. Garner, The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style (2nd ed.),
p. 83
• The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), rule 2.9
• United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit,
Requirements and Suggestions for Typography in Briefs and Other
Papers, p. 5
• Improve your headings
– Generally three levels is enough
– Fourth level will likely confuse
– Anchored toward left side
– No underlining
– Use all caps other than for a very short heading
like “ARGUMENT”
– Use bold over italics
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• LEARN TO MAKE NON-BREAKING SPACES
– Non-breaking space is the same size as a regular
space, but it prevents text from flowing to a new
line or page
• Handy when using section or paragraph symbols
• The symbol won’t separate from the number or letters
following it
• Also good for Bluebook ellipses
– WORD – hit control + shift + space bar
• SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR LAPTOP &
IPAD JUDGES?
– Consider font choice
– Even fewer footnotes than before
– Think about heading styles
• Minimize levels
• Can the substance make them more effective for a
small screen?
• Scientific numbering? 1, 1.1, 1.1.1, etc.
MASTER THE COMMA
• Use a comma before a conjunction that
introduces an independent clause. (for, and,
nor, but, or, yet, and so)
– I want to investigate this issue, but I need to
wait until my client calls.
– I want to investigate this issue but need to
wait until my client calls.
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• DON’T USE A COMMA WHEN YOU HAVE TWO
INDEPENDENT CLAUSES JOINED BY HOWEVER
OR THEREFORE
– YOU MUST USE A SEMICOLON
• THIS
– The attorney argued persuasively; however, the
judge overruled her.
• NOT THIS
– The defendant was not credible, therefore, the
jury voted to convict her.
MASTER THE COMMA
• You do not need commas around mid-clause phrases “thus”
or “therefore”
THIS
– She is therefore inclined to postpone the meeting
indefinitely.
– Counsel thus rejected our proposal.
NOT THIS
– The Court should, therefore, grant Defendants’
Motion to Dismiss.
MASTER THE COMMA
• Use a comma after a full date. Don’t use one
between a month and a year.
– You have until February 1, 2014, to respond to
this settlement offer.
– The negotiations must occur in February 2014.
• Prefer the serial comma.
– I leave all of my property to Jim, Helen, Tim, and
Eva.
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Sources
• Joseph M. Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (9th ed.
2007).
• Richard Wydick, Plain English for Lawyers (2d ed. 1985).
• Alan L. Dworsky, The Little Book on Legal Writing (2d ed.
2000).
• Linda H. Edwards, Legal Writing and Analysis (2d ed. 2007).
• Ross Guberman, www.legalwritingpro.com/articles
• Writing a Brief for the iPad Judge, Columbia Business Law
Review http://cblr.columbia.edu/archives/12940
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