Red line
The craft of legal writing, one edit at a time. The words that weaken a pleading, a demand, or a closing, and what to write instead.
The Mechanism Paragraph
Three sentences between the crash and the injury: the force, the body, the result. Most pleadings and demands skip them. The ones that get paid are built on them.
The Block Quote
The long indented quote is where persuasion goes to die, because every reader skips it. Find the one line that carries the case, sew it into your own sentence, and cite the rest.
The Adverb
He was driving recklessly is a conclusion in the costume of a description. Cut the adverb, show the fact, and let the jury supply the word on its own.
Each and Every
The lawyer's doublets, null and void, cease and desist, full and complete, as a tic of fear. Keep the word that carries meaning; cut the word that carries fear.
The Vehicle Left Its Lane
A forty-ton truck crossed a double yellow and the sentence has no villain in it. The passive voice as the defense's favorite tool, and the discipline of putting the actor back in front of the verb.
Unsafe Lane Change
Three words an officer writes at the scene that sound like fault and are only the doorway to it. The Texas lane-change duty, negligence per se, and what the box on the report leaves out.
Clearly
When you write that something is clear, you are telling the reader you cannot show it. The word is a confession. Strike it.
“No Crosswalk” Is Not the End of the Sentence
The first thing the defense says in a pedestrian case, and the sentence is not finished. How to write past it.
Show the Second and a Half
Do not write that the driver was negligent. Write the second and a half he had to stop, and let the reader convict him.
Failed to Control Speed
The crash-report phrase that sounds like a verdict. In a truck case it is only the first question.
Wherefore, Premises Considered
The prayer that closes every Texas petition. The one piece of boilerplate you do not cut.
The Buried Lede
The fact that wins your case should not be hiding in paragraph nine.
The Letter You Don’t Send
Anger on paper reads as weakness, and the record keeps everything.
One Fact, One Question
A question with two facts in it is a question the witness gets to choose from.
Please Be Advised
The first sentence of a demand letter, spent on the wound instead of the weather.
Nobody Did It
Passive voice is not grammar. It is a hiding place, built on purpose.
Comes Now
The most famous throat-clear in Texas law, edited into a first line that earns its place.
The Fog Machine
One defense-letter sentence, edited down to its eleven honest words.