Legal Writing Tips: I Am John Roberts and So Can You!

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Jay O'Keeffe

Ross Guberman of Legal Writing Pro has a fun piece, Five Ways to Write Like John Roberts, that's worth checking out. In the essay, Guberman distills five writing lessons from Roberts's brief in Alaska v. EPA. Those lessons are:

  1. Let your facts "show, not tell."
  2. Add speed through short and varied transitions.
  3. Add elegance and clarity through parallel constructions.
  4. Add interest through short sentences, examples, and figures of speech.
  5. End with a bang.

Sure, you've heard it all before. But Guberman's vivid discussion and well-chosen examples bring these points to life. And frankly, the quotation from Roberts's statement of the case alone makes the essay worth reading.

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