Joe Regalia Profile picture
Jul 18, 2022 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
With a slew of #SCOTUS opinions comes lots of great #legalwriting examples!

In Justice Kagan's Wooden v. U.S. opinion, let's break down three simple tools we can all use:

1. TLDR Intros
2. Simple Sentences
3. Trendy Transitions

1/x
TLDR Intros (quick intros that dish the key points in a document) are now common with judges and lawyers alike.

How do the greats craft them?

1. Give readers context - why is this dispute here?
2. Insert choice details to prime
3. Highlight your legal pitch
In a paragraph, Justice Kagan orients you to the situation and highlights several charged facts:

(1) that the defendant faces a hefty 15-year sentence,

(2) that the lower court is piling on 20 years after the fact, and

(3) this was a single facility on a single evening.
She also includes her key legal pitch: It's absurd to base a statutory trigger on distinct moments in time rather than a common-sense understanding of a single event.
Great legal writers spoon-feed ideas to readers - using sentences that tend toward the simple. Many of the best sentences are so simple all they need is a period.

When great writers get more complex and pack more groups of words (and ideas) into a sentence, they have a reason.
The first sentence is a simple clause.

The second sentence offers two simple, related ideas.

The third sentence is again only two groups of words and a simple structure (a phrase with some context to set the scene for the officer's visit)...
The fourth sentence is another simple single-clause sentence. And then when we finally get a few groups of words in the fifth sentence, it's crafted complexity. A narrative sentence meant to convey unfolding events and a scene.
Finally, the greats often do two things with transitions.

First, transition by adding helpful guides to your sentences - don't just insert empty transitions like "furthermore" that tell readers "another point is coming."
Second, vary your transition phrases throughout your document so that readers don't notice them. And vary also by echoing words or concepts from the prior sentence (instead of always relying only on transition phrases).

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More from @writedotlaw

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Themes are moral, emotional, or practical principles that tie some or all of a document together 📑

But what is the best advice when choosing a theme? (1/10)
✅ Consider your audience and the atmospherics.

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Let’s check out some powerhouse legal writing moves from two teams that couldn’t be more different:

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In the opening paragraphs, there were many details the Paul Weiss team could have pointed to.

But instead, they highlighted the single most powerful emotional point. 2/ Image
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Dry, dense legal issues in the hands of incredible legal writers at @omelvenymyers, @SidleyLaw, @McDermottLaw, @JennerBlockLLP, @troutmanpepper, @BlankRomeLLP, @DorseyWhitney, and Kellogg, Hansen?

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Let's see how (a🧵1/x)
Responding Done Right.

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Check out how the @omelvenymyers pros remind you of enough specifics in a reply so that you can understand now. Image
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But when you need to take opposing views head-on, use your opponent's words against them and immediately provide specifics to combat them. Image
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Check out some great examples from briefs filed this week across the nation. 1/
Check out how much Supreme Court regular Paul Clement and his team pack into the first sentence of a reply brief this week.

Those specifics dish up most of what you need to know—in the entire brief—with a single opener. Image
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Simply by breaking down an argument into pieces and putting it into a logical structure, your chances of persuading audiences rise. Image
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Fantastic legal writing lessons for us all.

Check out how some of the best lawyers craft the crux, prime audiences to win, and list their path to victory! /x
Introductions are everything.

Legal readers these days want the specific questions and answers at the outset. If they can decide your case in five minutes, all the better!

Start by orienting readers to what your document is about and the questions they need to answer. Image
Prime with context.

If readers might be set out against you (as is often the case when appealing an adverse ruling below), prime readers with helpful context so they are in the best headspace to receive your argument. Image
Read 6 tweets
May 9, 2023
@Disney's complaint against Florida is a master class in advocating through pleadings.

A killer ToC, emotional priming, and surgical quoting give us a lot to learn from!

1/x
☑️ Emotional Priming: Reframe the Bad Facts.

The greatest legal writers don't run from the bad facts.

Instead, they often manage the bad in a couple of ways: (1) providing counter facts that detract from the bad or (2) reframing the bad facts so they look better. Image
☑️ More Emotional Priming: Shifting the Focus.

Now let's look at the other sort of emotional priming: sharing favorable details to detract or redirect your reader's attention. Image
Read 7 tweets

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