Tips to Excel in Legal Research and Writing
Legal research and writing can be tedious for some lawyers and, unfortunately, that tends to show as many legal documents are unnecessarily long, dull, and generally not likely to be read to completion. By following these simple five tips below, you’ll ensure that your legal documents are more interesting and better researched than your opponent’s.
Tips to become better at Legal Research and Writing
Legal Writing
Tip #1: Say it as you would at a bar
Many lawyers get so caught up in the technicalities of the law, dates, irrelevant facts, and terms of art that they end up weaving a literary basket of confusion and boredom. Kind of like that last sentence. To avoid this, write your motions and memos like you would if you were telling the story to a friend at a bar. Okay, not exactly like you would at a bar, let’s keep it professional. But the point is, when we tell stories in our everyday lives we tend to naturally stick closely to the relevant facts, go in chronological order, keep a little mystery and suspense, and then deliver a punch line. This makes a story interesting and engaging. Good legal writing is no different than telling a good story so make sure your motions and memos read more like a novel than an itinerary.
Legal Writing
Tip #2: Less is more
The biggest mistake lawyers make is taking ten pages to make an argument that only requires three. Judges are busy and the last thing they need is to read yet another lengthy, uninteresting motion. So chose your words carefully and edit them down every time. When you’re done with your first draft, step away from it for a day or even just a few hours. When you come back to it with fresh eyes, cut, cut, cut, the excess. If you don’t have time to do this, use a legal writing service as a second pair of eyes to edit your documents and streamline your arguments.
Legal Research
Tip #3: When in doubt… Google it
If you’re researching a topic you’re unfamiliar with, or if you have a very particular issue, Google can be the best springboard for your research. Good legal research is all about having the right search terms, and having the right search terms requires you to know the correct terms of art. If you’re diving into a new area of law and don’t yet know the lingo, a simple Google search can save you hours on Westlaw or Lexis. Once you’ve found a few articles that help you target the correct terms, you can then take those terms into the legal research platforms and get better results.
Legal Research
Tip #4: Become an expert at terms and connectors
Needless to say, legal research should be conducted on one of the major legal research platforms. In those platforms, the secret sauce is terms and connectors. While legal research platforms promote their “natural language” searchability, the use of terms and connectors is still far superior for results and efficiency. All of the major legal research platforms have trainings that are worth making time for, but if you’re looking for a shortcut, I suggest using the reference attorneys. Both Westlaw and Lexis give you free access to reference attorneys that will conduct legal research for you. Although you can’t use them for all of your projects, you can learn from them while you knock out a research project at the same time. Win-Win. These lawyers spend all their time conducting legal research so pay close attention to the terms and connectors they use and ask plenty of questions, it’s the quickest way to get a crash course in legal research.
Legal Research and Writing
Tip #5: Practice, Practice, Practice
Finally, the most important tip to improve your legal research and writing is practice. Not only the practice of doing the legal research and writing yourself, but also observing that of others. When reading motions and memos from opposing counsel, pay attention to what you find tedious, confusing, or irrelevant. Conversely, if you find a great piece of legal writing, inspect it to see what makes it so captivating and try to mimic that in your writing.
If you prefer to leave the legal research and writing to the experts, reach out to us at 407-926-0167 and let us turn your motions and memos into interesting, engaging documents that you (and others) will enjoy reading.