Legal Commentary

I shudder a little when I re-read parts of my first law review article--the verbosity, the prolixity, the obscurantism, the obvious reliance on a thesaurus. . . .  I wasn?t entirely sure what I was doing, and I?m grateful to the editors who saw (what I still think is) a good point in all that purple prose--even if that point could in fact be boiled down to three sentences.

But then, that was almost 20 years ago (which also makes me shudder), and law school was several years in the future when I wrote it, and I was writing in the style in which I thought legal academics wrote.  I?d LIKE to think I write better now.  But thinking about it--and seeing Bridget Crawford's post over at the Faculty Lounge--prompted a few questions about style, about voice.  What style do you strive for when you write a law review article?  Conversational?  Formal?  For those who clerked, do you find yourself writing in a clerk?s voice?  Those who went to grad school or were in another discipline before legal academia, do you see differences?

Of course it varies by person, and probably by piece.   But do you think about it?  How conscious a choice is the style or voice you write in?  Were you taught a particular way?  Do you follow it or rebel against it (I?m probably opening up a thread for legal writing people as well)?

More style questions to come, but that?s a start.