Lawyers aren't always the most popular guests at the party. So, when asked by a stranger, "What do you do?" the savvy appellate lawyer might respond, "Oh, I'm a writer - mostly nonfiction."
In the early 1990s, lawyers newly admitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit received three tangible items for their admission fee. First, of course, was the suitable-for-framing admission certificate. Second was a three-ring binder containing the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and local circuit rules. (Remember, this was pre-Internet, so the rules were not just a click away.) Third, a copy of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.
Why would the court invest in sending an actual book to every lawyer upon admission? Because writing is so critically important to appellate practice that (presumably) the court wanted to give lawyers a useful guide. It probably helped that the book was small and light - at least physically. The Elements of Style, originally a 43-page handbook by William Strunk Jr., was first formally published in 1920 (expanded to 52 pages). See The Elements of Style, by William Strunk—A Project Gutenberg eBook. One of Strunk's students, E.B. White, wrote about the guide in a 1959 New Yorker essay and then created an expanded edition that year (bulked up to 71 pages). In 1999, the 4th edition reached 105 pages. In 2011, Time magazine listed it as one of the best and most influential books written in English since 1923. (For a fuller history, see Mark Garvey's Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style (Simon & Schuster 2009).)
For those unfamiliar with it (gasp!), the book consists of usage rules, principles of composition, and listings of commonly misspelled and misused words and phrases. The basic rules are commonly known (if not always applied) among writers: omit needless words; eliminate unnecessary qualifiers; do not overstate; write in the active voice; use concrete language; keep related words together; place emphatic words at the end; use parallel construction; be clear; and always revise and rewrite. The advice is fundamental, excellent, and (naturally) well presented. While there are some detractors with quibbles out there, most in the biz have heartily endorsed The Elements over the decades.
Dorothy Parker quipped: "If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy."
In his outstandingly useful book on writing, titled On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Scribner 2000) (320 pages), Stephen King gushes: "There is little or no detectable bullshit in that book. (Of course, it's short; at eighty-five pages it's much shorter than this one.) I'll tell you right now that every aspiring writer should read The Elements of Style."
All that said, there's always room for excellent books to help improve writing. And if they're short and direct, all the better. There are plenty of worthwhile books on legal writing, many by Bryan Garner, but sometimes what's needed is something short and sweet.
This takes us to Ben Yagoda's How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoid Them (Riverhead Books 2013). Although now a dozen years old, it is not nearly as well-known as Strunk & White's bible nor William Zinser's On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (Harper Perennial 1976) (only 336 pages, by the way). And Yagoda's book is only 192 engaging pages.
Yagoda acknowledges that Strunk & White is "the all-time champ" (and the "most (deservedly) popular writing guide") but also recognized that with so many books focused on how to write well, a different perspective could be useful. (This calls to mind Kozinski, The Wrong Stuff, 1992 BYU L. Rev. 325 (1992) (humorously teaching how to write a bad brief).) Indeed, with decades of teaching journalism under his belt, Yagoda realized that sometimes writing "well" is simply too ambitious, so he set out to tackle the more modest goal of explaining merely how to not write badly.
In many ways, legal writing resembles journalism. Both lawyers and journalists operate under tight deadlines and length limits. Both have an audience of skeptical readers. No doubt, there must be other books and guides used in journalism school from which the practicing bar could greatly benefit. But we'll focus on this one.
Yagoda maintains that "not-writing-badly consists of the ability, first, to craft sentences that are correct in terms of spelling, diction (that is, word choice), punctuation, and grammar, and that display clarity, precision, and grace." Beyond that, "there are a few more areas that have to be addressed in crafting a whole paragraph: cadence, consistency of tone, word repetition, transitions between sentences, [and] paragraph length." Accordingly, Yagoda's book has three parts: Part I: How to Not Write Bad: The One-Word Version; Part II: How to Not Write Wrong (about governing style, punctuation, words, and grammar); and Part III: How to Not Write Bad (more on punctuation, words and phrases, sentences, paragraphs). Parts II and III focus on about 50 of the most common errors and problems that make writing bad. The focus of this column, however, is how spot on Yagoda's Part I really is.
Part I gives a one-word answer to the key question "how does one become a better writer?" That answer is: "Read." He elaborates: "Good writers read widely and frequently. By osmosis they learn from reading an incalculable amount about vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, style, rhythm, tone, and other crucial writing matters." Readers also "pick up general random information, which also turns out to be important if you want to be a good, or even not-bad writer."
This advice is so sound that it is widely repeated. Just last month, for instance, Judge Fred Biery (W.D. Tex., formerly on a Texas state appellate court) wrote: "Read and listen widely and deeply to literature, commentators, authors, humorists, arts, culture and science." Biery, A Judge's Pointers For Adding Spice To Dry Legal Writing (Law360 March 14, 2025). The day before that article, Bryan Garner's Law Prose Lesson included the point that good writers are "attentive and fairly voracious readers." Garner, LawProse Lesson #447: The Mindset of an Effective Writer (March 13, 2025). And the week before that, Garner intoned: "Step one in becoming a strong writer is to become a strong reader." Garner, LawProse Lesson #446: Become a Strong Reader (March 4, 2025).
This naturally raises the question, "ok, what should one be reading to improve writing, and legal writing in particular?" Garner says to read "the best expository writing of our day," which includes Harper's, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. Id. It seems safe to assume that Yagoda would agree.
Consider The New Yorker, E.B. White's stomping grounds for nearly 60 years, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. For about ten bucks an issue (cheaper by subscription; free via your local library), one can obtain roughly 100 pages of amazingly written and expertly edited prose. (Not to mention amusing cartoons!) New Yorker articles are the sort that answer questions you never knew you had. Most articles are non-fiction, covering topics that on their face would seem arcane, obscure, or outright boring. And yet the authors somehow find a way to make readers care about, learn about, and delve into details on areas that they would never choose on their own. Sound familiar? Lawyers often must write about the minutiae of dry subjects. New Yorker articles are master classes at drawing the reader in and keeping the reader's interest, even as the piece continues, page after page after page.
Book reviews are another wonderful source both for picking up writing tips as well as ideas of what to read next. The New York Review of Books and the Book Review supplement in the Sunday New York Times are especially worthwhile. Book reviewers take a highly critical look at an author's final draft and slice and dice it, analyzing reasoning, style, and effectiveness. Again, that's just what lawyers do: review caselaw and opposing counsel's written product, with an eye toward critiquing it. Book reviews often have delightful turns of phrase to expose poor presentation, faulty logic, and weak positions.
The 11th Circuit no longer sends new admittees a notebook with its rules, but instead a letter directing lawyers to the court's website. Nor does it send a spiffy certificate; instead, an ecertificate is e-mailed, suitable for self-printing (and then framing, if anyone bothers with that). But it sends The Elements of Style - sort of. It now sends a link to an online version.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Journal.
