Search results for ""author bryan garner""

It its first two editions The Winning Brief explained the art of effective writing in 100 concise, practical, and easy-to-use tips, proving that the key to writing well is to understand the judicial readership. This third edition of Bryan A. Garner's modern classic delivers the same invaluable guidelines with even more supporting evidence. Covering everything from the rules for planning and organizing a brief to openers that can capture a judge's attention from the first few words, these tips add up to the most compelling, orderly, and visually appealing brief that an advocate can present. In Garner's view, good writing is good thinking put to paper. "Never write a sentence that you couldn't easily speak," he warns - and demonstrates how to do just that. Every tip begins with a set of quotable quotes from experts, followed by Garner's masterly advice on building sound paragraphs, drafting crisp sentences, choosing the best words ("Strike pursuant to from your vocabulary."), quoting authority, citing sources, and designing a document that looks as impressive as it reads. Throughout, Garner shows how to edit for maximal impact, using vivid before-and-after examples that apply the basics of rhetoric to persuasive writing. In this much-expanded third edition, Garner has perfected the text with nine new tips, hundreds of new examples, and amplified explanations throughout-all in his trademark style. Among the new sections are tips on understanding judges' reading habits, answering opponents' arguments, writing effective reply briefs, using authorities persuasively, and organizing arguments based on statutes and contracts. Quotable quotes, which Garner carefully assembled after years of wide reading and close study, have been expanded and improved throughout the book. There is also a new appendix on a remarkable brief that some consider the best ever written ("a beautiful marriage of rhetorical skill, thorough research, and humane lawyering"). Perhaps the biggest change to this edition is that every tip now ends with a summary checklist that recaps and crystalizes the subpoints just covered, with further ideas for improvement. Garner conceived these checklists in part as a way to help readers approach his book as a set of 100 tutorials. Reviewing and practicing each tip will offer brief-writers a degree of mastery that more cavalier colleagues will find difficult to equal. An invaluable resource for attorneys, law clerks, judges, paralegals, law students and their teachers, The Winning Brief has the qualities that make all of Garner's books so popular: authority, accessibility, and page after page of techniques that work. If you're writing to win a case, this book shouldn't merely be on your shelf--it should be open on your desk.

Read more less

This new edition of Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage marshals and analyses the modern legal vocabulary more thoroughly than any other contemporary reference work can claim to do. Since the first edition, Bryan A. Garner has drawn on his unrivalled experience as a legal editor to refine his positions on legal usage and to add a wealth of new material. The new Third Edition remains indispensable by updating numerous entries, adding dozens of new entries and hundreds of new sections within existing entries; adding hundreds of new illustrative quotations from judicial opinions and leading law books by prominent legal commentators; revising the selected bibliography; and expanding and updating cross-references to guide readers quickly and easily. A new preface introduces the reader to this edition and discusses content that has been newly incorporated. Influential writers and editors rely on DMLU daily. It is an essential resource for practising lawyers, scholars of the law, and libraries of all sizes and types. DMLU functions both as a style guide and as a law dictionary, guiding writers to distinguish between true terms of law and mere jargon and illustrating recommended forms of expression. Common blunders are discussed in ways that will discourage writers from any further use. The origins of frequently used expressions are described with engaging prose. Collectively, there is no better resource for approaching legal writing in a logical, clear, and error-free way.

Read more less

From legal expert and veteran author Bryan Garner comes a unique, intimate, and compelling memoir of his friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.For almost thirty years, Antonin Scalia was arguably the most influential and controversial Justice on the United States Supreme Court. His dynamic and witty writing devoted to the Constitution has influenced an entire generation of judges. Based on his reputation for using scathing language to criticize liberal court decisions, many people presumed Scalia to be gruff and irascible. But to those who knew him as “Nino,” he was characterized by his warmth, charm, devotion, fierce intelligence, and loyalty. Bryan Garner’s friendship with Justice Scalia was instigated by celebrated writer David Foster Wallace and strengthened over their shared love of language. Despite their differing viewpoints on everything from gun control to the use of contractions, their literary and personal relationship flourished. Justice Scalia even officiated at Garner’s wedding. In this humorous, touching, and surprisingly action-packed memoir, Garner gives a firsthand insight into the mind, habits, and faith of one of the most famous and misunderstood judges in the world.

Read more less