Suits and Sentences, one of the better law blogs on the web, has a small piece about the writing style of Chief Justice Roberts. Michael Doyle, the blog’s author, points out that Roberts’s style is plainspoken and therefore effective. Check it out here.
Regardless of the panel you get, the questions you get, or the answers you give, I maintain it is the brief that does the final job, if for no other reason than that the opinions are often written several weeks and sometimes months after the argument. The arguments, great as they may have been are […]
Legal briefs and motions are many times filled with invectives against the other party, opposing counsel, or even the court. Frankly, shrill invectives are not sharp persuasive tools and the best tone for any legal document is a plain one. Consider this from Jacques Barzun: [T]he best tone is the tone called plain, unaffected, unadorned.… […]
