Competitive Edge: Lawyers Who Write Well
Lawyers who write well possess a competitive edge not only in today’s crowded legal marketplace, but in all business arenas.
It’s no secret that we lawyers read and write for a living. Speedy and strong reading comprehension is essential to a successful law practice. Writing skills make the difference between success and failure in a motion, appeal, or alternative dispute resolution brief. Many forums do not allow oral argument and persuasive writing must carry the day without further assistance from the lawyer’s bag of verbal skills.
Legal writing is an art form in itself, but it also provides every lawyer’s opportunity to represent his or her clients effectively. Savvy clients, judges, judicial clerks, and opposing counsel frequently lament the poor quality of legal writing they receive or are required to read. Legal writing skills can always be improved. Increased business success is sure to follow.
Lawyers write and sell high end fiction in significant numbers.
What might be surprising to someone arriving in America from Mars is how much we lawyers read and write when we aren’t required to do so, whether we’re using our skills in our practices or other aspects of our lives.
A former general counsel turned apprentice fiction writer told me just yesterday, “A fairly strong percentage of higher end fiction in this country is either consumed or produced and consumed by lawyers. They relate to the world through writing and reading; that’s how they spend their work hours and that’s how they relax.”
Indeed.
At least since Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent was published in 1984, followed by John Grisham’s The Firm a few years later, the number of lawyers writing and publishing fiction has expanded while the number of both fiction and nonfiction stories about the law and lawyers has exploded.
David Kelly (L.A. Law, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Legal), Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, NYPD), and Dick Wolf (Law & Order) did for the small screen what Turow and Grisham did for print. Any night of the week, any weekend at the box office, one can see non-stop stories about crime, lawyers, and the application of law to society.
Lawyers create nonfiction with greater precision, compassion and insight.
Non-fiction is at least as well-covered. Perhaps beginning with the moment to moment coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial, and followed by Court TV, moving into shows like Judge Judy and People’s Court, the public seems to have an insatiable appetite for all things related to the law and lawyers.
Our current President and First Lawyer Barack Obama has several books on the bestseller lists. Former White House residents William and Hilary Clinton preceded Mr. Obama as best selling lawyer-writers. Lawyers have written nonfiction accounts of everything from commentary on society such as lawyer William J. Bennett’s Book of Virtues, to brother Robert S. Bennett’s autobiographical In The Ring: The Trials of a Washington Lawyer. Biography, memoir, true crime, and history tomes are often penned by lawyers such as Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter, or Marcia Clark’s Without A Doubt.
What does all of this mean for lawyers interested in the business of writing?
We’ll cover all aspects of the business of writing for lawyers on this blog, from the voices of experience as well as the best minds on the subject. If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear them.
After all, writing is lawyer business.
