Welcome to Legal Writing Simplified

Welcome to the beginning of your learning about legal writing. Often, people believe that to be a strong legal writer, the writing itself must use words that are confusing or difficult to understand. This, first and foremost, is untrue. As you explore more details of legal writing, you will see this theme repeated time and again: simple and clear is best.

As you begin reading cases, directions from professors, and instructions for assignments, you will notice that when the writing is clear and easy to understand, you will learn and work better. Law students often have a misperception that legal writing means using confusing and difficult words in order to intimidate the reader. This is not true. Our collective goal as new learners should be to strive to make our writing easy to understand. We will work together to make this goal achievable.