A brief excerpt from Quimbee’s video lesson on throat-clearing and useless words in legal writing, the alternatives to excess words, and what police report language is and how to avoid it.

Watch more at https://www.quimbee.com/attorneys/courses/writing-for-clients/lessons/delete-unnecessary-words.

This video is just one of 36 videos in our “Writing for Clients” course.

“Writing for Clients” table of contents:

1. Introduction

+ Good – and not-so-good – legal writing
+ The client perspective
+ Before you write: The helicopter view
+ Before you write: The audience
+ Before you write: Scope, budget, & deadlines
+ Before you write: The outline

2. The Lawyer and the Architect

+ Structuring the facts
+ Structuring the issues
+ Structuring your discussion (part 1)
+ Structuring your discussion (part 2)
+ Structuring your conclusions (part 1)
+ Structuring your conclusions (part 2)

3. Writing like a 21st Century Lawyer

+ Legal writing and the zombie apocalypse
+ Replace Latin with English
+ Avoid archaic language
+ Omit needless words
+ Prefer verbs over nouns
+ Cite and footnote wisely

4. Writing Clearer Sentences

+ Manage your sentence length
+ Start and finish strongly
+ Prefer the active over the passive
+ Watch your word choice
+ Avoid parentheticals and double negatives
+ Use lists well

5. Writing to Engage

+ Be personal but professional
+ Be the right kind of technical
+ Keep your paragraphs focused
+ Open well
+ Close meaningfully
+ Emailing like a lawyer

6. Revising, Editing, and Proofreading

+ Revising, editing, proofreading – and trust
+ Revising and editing
+ Proofreading in practice
+ Why punctuation and grammar matter
+ Gender-neutral language
+ The final document