Legal Usage: A Modern Style Guide

Legal Usage A Modern Style Guide is a clear, unambiguous guide to good legal usage. It highlights the techniques that legal writers in the common law tradition need for effective, compelling and readable legal writing. The easy-to-use layout facilitates ready understanding of best practice for legal vocabulary and drafting style. It adopts a plain language approach to legal writing, in line with modern practice.
Publisher: LexisNexis
Print Book :1 volume, softbound
$125.00
Quantity
In Stock
ISBN: 9780409341461
Publisher: LexisNexis
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Product description

Style guides for legal writing are rare — this book fills that gap. It explores all aspects of legal usage. The purpose is to encourage a modern legal style that is clear, concise, elegant, reader-friendly and legally effective.

The book is organised alphabetically by word, phrase and subject matter, with extensive cross-referencing to related topics. The author cites hundreds of usage examples from leading judges in common law jurisdictions. He offers simple plain-language alternatives for numerous technical terms and foreign-language phrases, with supporting examples from judgments and legal texts.

This innovative and authoritative guide is an essential reference for lawyers, legislative drafters, decision-makers, students, in-house counsel, and anyone charged with preparing effective legal material.

Topics include:

•  organising material logically
•  adding impact to sentences
•  writing in ways that are gender-neutral and idiomatic
•  minimising ambiguity
•  using provisos and recitals
•  breaking complex material into digestible chunks
•  paragraphing effectively
•  punctuating properly
•  managing definitions
•  handling principles of interpretation
•  eliminating prolixity
•  creating effective headings
•  using (or avoiding) terms of art and Latin phrases
•  avoiding ‘fussy’ drafting
•  creating effective layout and design
•  using graphs, diagrams, notes and examples
•  avoiding noun-strings and passives
•  testing documents for readability
•  understanding readability formulas
•  using humour in legal writing.

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Table of contents

•  organising material logically
•  adding impact to sentences
•  writing in ways that are gender-neutral and idiomatic
•  minimising ambiguity
•  using provisos and recitals
•  breaking complex material into digestible chunks
•  paragraphing effectively
•  punctuating properly
•  managing definitions
•  handling principles of interpretation
•  eliminating prolixity
•  creating effective headings
•  using (or avoiding) terms of art and Latin phrases
•  avoiding ‘fussy’ drafting
•  creating effective layout and design
•  using graphs, diagrams, notes and examples
•  avoiding noun-strings and passives
•  testing documents for readability
•  understanding readability formulas
•  using humour in legal writing.