I’ve been tweaking my student legal writing tips again. Comments and suggestions for improvement are always welcomed.
Recent Bluessky Posts- If it helps they said the same stuff 20 years ago in similar circumstances. You should ask if senders will get a bounce message. If not that's something to pursue because something is rotten somewhere. Or you have an Exchange server, which is almost the same thing.... September 2, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Chaos unfolds at the Miami immigration court after judges are assigned mega master calendars, hearings where judges see more than 100 immigrants at once. n.pr/4xnTBS9 September 2, 2026 NPR
- Jotwell Courtslaw: Sergio J. Campos, Learning from Others: Summary Judgment in Canada, JOTWELL (Sept. 2, 2026), courtslaw.jotwell.com/summary-judg.... September 2, 2026 Jotwell
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- Yale goes into aggressive suppression mode, bans reporters from campus in hope of stopping coverage of student protest against bending the knee to Trump. Have they not heard of the Streisand Effect? September 2, 2026 Michael Froomkin
Re your style & mechanics tip #6 – Always be specific. Instead of “in recent years” try, “since 1980.” – that’s actually really important because you have no idea when the reader will encounter the work. I mean, you do hope people will still be reading your work 20-50 years hence, right?
wg
Actually, that’s not the reason. Because even “since 1980” will requires a reader to know when the article was written, in that one can’t necessarily count on it still being true, and certainly the author’s representation as to its continuing truth can’t carry forward past publication (e.g. “since 1980 the Supreme Court has never….”).
The reason for my saying it partly to encourage precision in general rather than the natural student (human) tendency to waffle, but mostly to force the student writer to check exactly when it began, rather than settling for a guess or a memory. Lawyers can’t afford that since neither is always right.