Resources To Improve Writing Skills

Effective legal writing can make the difference between a good and a great result for our clients. As appellate attorneys, strong legal writing skills are essential to serving the needs of our clients.  Here are some great sites for improving all aspects of your writing:

Grammar & Style

• The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, is a classic.  You can find the whole text of this manual on the Bartleby website.
• The Guide to Grammar and Writing, by Capitol Community College in Hartford, Connecticut offers help with Words and Sentences, Paragraphs, Essays and Research Papers, with quizzes and games to improve your writing style.
• Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL) has a complete set of resources on grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Legal Writing

• Bryan Garner provides some great exercises from his book Legal Writing in Plain English at the University of Chicago Press site.
• Legal Writing Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving legal writing by providing a forum for discussion and scholarship about legal writing, analysis, and research. LWI seems directed more towards legal writing instructors; there are some impressive resources.
• Barger on Legal Writing: Coleen Barger is a professor at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock William H. Bowen School of law, She has links to appellate resources, courses in legal writing, legal research links, and writing resources.
• LegalWriting.net by Wayne Schiess is a great blog dedicated to advancing quality legal writing.  Wayne is the director of legal writing at UT law school.