Legal Writing in Plain English, Second Edition: A Text with Exercises (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) Second Edition

Practice, practice, practice - the book’s principles are reinforced via exercises. If you do the exercises, and then apply the exercises to your work product, your writing will improve. I give a copy of this book to my legal staff upon intake, and as gifts to students. A new edition is coming out later this year and I plan to purchase that one as well. It is an excellent addition to a legal library.

If you've read Garner's stuff, you'll notice some overlap. This book restated "The Winning Brief" multiple times, and it has most of the same examples (Demand Letters, Memos, etc.) as "The Redbook 2d" (I don't have the 3d of that one).That's the disclaimer. But I still loved the book. It's largely written as a how-to, gives you tips to improve your legal writing, and is a resource that I'll continue to reference throughout my career.If you'd like a quick read (with accompanying exercises to test your skill) this is a great book to have. Then, when you become more interested, you can nab the Redbook, Legal Usage dictionaries, etc. In sum, it's a great place to start.One objection, though: Garner's answers in the back often deal with only the Easy exercise, not all three (Easy, Intermediate, Hard). I realize that giving answers to all three would lengthen the book, but the easy one is exactly that--easy. I'd like to see his Heller brief, or any of the harder ones just to compare. But that's only a minor annoyance. Otherwise, it's a real asset if you're interested in improving your legal writing. And you should be.

Immediately after reading this, I looked up the author. Wow! I then bought his book Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage and checked out his website LawProse. This short primer was the perfect read to get ready for law school.

This and another book by Mr. Garner were recommended to me as potentially useful aids for my legal RWA class. Neither book was helpful for those classes. Ironically, each was recommended again by the instructor at the end of the course.An example of why the book was not helpful in the class: the book recommends avoiding the Courier font as being difficult to read. Courier was the only font we were allowed to use. Basically, if this book recommends a strategy, it was likely forbidden in the class. Still, I think it will be useful going forward.

I love this book! Very helpful not just for lawyers but for anyone interested in the legal profession and in the art of persuasion… I bought this together with Legal Writing in Plain English and I’m so glad I did!!! Fast Delivery too!

I learned more in this book than I ever learned in my para legal class-absolute genius.

This book was purchased for a tax research class. It absolutely delivers on its title, more than I even could have imagined. I was immediately impressed by the author's matter-of-fact yet engaging style, and the content is quite useful for non-legal professionals too. If you ever write persuasive letters, articles or blog posts, there are many practical tips in this book. It is an entertaining and thought provoking read. After most sections, I was left scratching my head with a puzzled look on my face. Not questioning the author's ideas, I was instead left wondering why they were not more mainstream, legal and otherwise. I really hope many more people, even those who only occasionally write, read this book!

Being in the legal field I bought the book based on the title. However, although the book offers specific legal exercises the presented material is relevant to any writing. It will help you to communicate more clearly.