Themes of conciseness and clarity. A particularly interesting section on rhetorical skills addresses comparison, wordplay, and repetition. Consists of forty-four rules stressing clarity, brevity, simplicity, and tone. Prepared by the Moot Court Board of Harvard Law School. This standard work includes a sample record, sample brief for the appellant and one for the appellee.
Considerable attention is paid to proper citation.
This book is intended to help writers move from a substantive first draft to a polished final document. From the Preface. Contains many exercises. Mr. Mellinkoff continues his plea for a new legal language that he began in his 1963 book, The Language of the Law . He provides a practical guide to simplify and improve legal writing by setting forth seven basic rules and by drawing distinctions between terms of art and unnecessary traditional legal language.