Thread by @JOpolsky

Another opus from Stratas J - this time on legal writing.

Although it calls for brevity in legal writing, it is 200 slides. So I'll update this thread as I work my way through it.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

This is something that Stratas has long said, and isn't heard enough: down with the supras (and with the infras too).

Repeating the citations every time always annoys the junior associates (sorry @jonscottsilver ), but it's to ease of use.

2/🧵

"Avoid “supra”. When a judges are interested in your citation, e.g., just to find out the court that decided the case, and you use“supra”, the judge has to disengage with your message and embark on an involuntary game of hide and seek...repeat the citation every time."

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"Avoid block quotes."

4/🧵 (slide 117)

But he endorses parenthetical quotes from cases from the citation as helpful (in the American style, for those who hate American citations cough @AndrewBernstei9 cough).

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Sometimes, what is good legal writing for judges may not be good legal writing for advocates. Stratas J endorses "posing questions" in writing, then answering them. I think this works well in judgments, but in factums it seems rhetorical. Is this good factum writing?

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Stratas J NOT a fan of using emphasis (repeats it 3 different times):

"And most [judges] resent prose that YELLS AT THEM or
dictates to them; text in bold, italics and
underlining repels."

7/🧵

Rothstein J famously read through his draft judgments and struck out all of his adjectives and adverbs.

Justice Stratas advises doing the same:

"Adjectives and adverbs are clumsy, bulky and “in
your face”. They do not persuade." (p. 39)

8/🧵