Peter Smythe, P.C.

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.… It is the most dif­fi­cult of all tones, and also the most adap­ta­ble. When you can write plain, you can trust your­self in spe­cial effects. The plain tone is that of Lin­coln always, that of Tho­reau, Emer­son, William James, Mark Twain, “Mr. Doo­ley,” Fitz­ge­rald, and Heming­way at their best. It is the tone Whit­man urged on his con­tem­po­ra­ries: “The art of art, the glory of expres­sion … is sim­pli­city. Nothing is bet­ter than sim­pli­city … nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of defi­ni­te­ness. Jac­ques Bar­zun, Sim­ple and Direct: A Rhe­to­ric for Wri­ters 90 (rev. ed. 1985).

You might also like:

• Hel­ping the Legal Wri­ter: Twain as Critic
• Why All the Legalese?
• Puc­kett: Plain Error May Apply to Govern­ment Breaches
• Oral Argu­ment: The Para­dox of Simplicity
• Brief Wri­ting Isn’t Easy