Professional Growth
Take It From an Expert: Don’t Write to ‘Sound Like a Lawyer’
January 25, 2022
Rick Horowitz makes a point of identifying himself as a “discussion leader” rather than a “presenter.” Never ever as a “lecturer.” He prefers to read the room, even a virtual one, and to ask lots of questions to draw people into the conversation. If all he hears is his own voice, he figures he’s failed.
It hasn’t happened yet.
Horowitz, founder and “wordsmith in chief” of Prime Prose, LLC, offers writing, editing, and messaging services to state and local bar associations, law firms, government agencies, and businesses across the country. His CLE course, “More Effective Writing Makes More Effective Lawyers,” has been a popular offering on the D.C. Bar’s program calendar since 2017 — in-person before the pandemic hit and online until the coast is clear again.
A graduate of Brandeis University and NYU School of Law, Horowitz worked for a Washington, D.C., law firm, specializing in communications law, and as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill. He went on to become a syndicated columnist, winning two National Headliner Awards, and a regional Emmy Award-winning commentator for Milwaukee Public Television. He’s also taught business writing and opinion writing at the college level.
Horowitz has drawn on these experiences to create and lead his workshops. Here he talks about his background and guidelines for getting attorneys to write less like lawyers.
What are some of the most common writing mistakes lawyers make?
I start with this assumption: Most of the time — not always, but at least most of the time — most lawyers want at least most of the people they’re writing [to] to understand at least most of what they’re writing.
Seems obvious enough, doesn’t it? But if that’s true, then why do so many lawyers put up so many roadblocks to understanding? Complicated arguments that lack a road map to guide the reader through the thicket. Unnecessary details — unnecessary, that is, for that reader at that moment (a reader who, more than likely, is already drowning in information). Long paragraphs of impenetrable gray type. Sentences filled with jargon and legalese. A five-word phrase when two would do. There’s a reason people tell lawyer jokes, right? Most of them have to do with the way lawyers communicate, or don’t. My job [is] to get lawyers to reconsider, and maybe even tweak, some of those lawyerly writing habits.
For instance, lawyers write so many different types of documents, everything from formal legal filings to emails. They write for so many different kinds of readers to accomplish so many different goals. So why would they think they should be writing all those things the very same way? With the same degree of detail? The same amount of background information? The same use of acronyms and technical terms? The same level of formality?
But we’ve all been trained to “include this and include that, too.” We’ve all been trained to “sound like a lawyer,” when that may not be the best way to present these particular facts to this particular audience for this particular purpose. (I can’t even say the words “sound like a lawyer” without pitching my voice a full octave lower than normal! That should be telling us something, don’t you think?)
Instead of that, I encourage my workshop attendees to consider what I call “situational writing.” To become more aware of the different writing circumstances in which they find themselves — different goals, different audiences, different time constraints. And to be more flexible in their writing approaches to meet those different circumstances. That flexibility, I believe, can help get them the clarity they lack and the brevity they need and the accessibility their readers will appreciate, whether those readers are fellow attorneys or judges or experts or laypeople.
How did you fall in love with both the practice of law and writing?
My first two jobs out of law school were with a small D.C. law firm that has long since gone extinct and as a legislative assistant and speechwriter on Capitol Hill. I liked the law, but I found myself increasingly drawn to the writing. In fact, the key part of the job description for that congressional spot was “a lawyer who can write.” And each job after that — until this latest one, at least — seemed to involve less law and more writing. Now it’s like I’m pulling all those threads together, and I’m really enjoying it.
Thinking back on it, the speechwriting part of that Hill job was probably the first crucial step toward becoming a writing coach. It was a while ago — not quite in the days of cave paintings, but close enough! — and so I still had access to my predecessors’ typed-out speech drafts and, most importantly, to the congressman’s handwritten edits on those drafts.
I found I could see patterns. If every time one of those writers wrote Phrase X, the congressman changed it to Phrase Y. That told me something about the congressman’s preferred vocabulary and his natural rhetorical style: formal? conversational? something in between? If every time there was a “cold opening” to a sentence, the congressman added an “And...” or a “But...” or even an “Indeed...” to ease himself into his next statement. That told me something about his oratorical comfort zones.
Each of those edits went into making him come across the way he wanted to come across. To building his voice. And I found that, by recognizing those patterns and others, I was able to replicate them. In fact, the very first speech draft I wrote for the congressman came back with a note from my direct supervisor: “This is great — sounds just like JB.” I couldn’t have been happier. It didn’t sound anything like my own voice, and I’d already been sending out some of my own op-eds on totally non-congressional topics by that time. But that was the point: I wasn’t writing as me!
And that — to my mind, at least — is one of the key requirements for speechwriters or ghostwriters, or for any kind of collaborators in a legal writing team: to put your own ego aside and to disappear into the person who’ll actually be saying those words.
That can be hard for some lawyers, especially less experienced attorneys, to adjust to — the realization they’re not always writing as themselves in their own voice. Instead, they’re often representing their agency or their law firm, or writing over someone else’s signature — a particular senior partner or supervising attorney.
And at the other end of the experience spectrum? “Well, I’ve always done it this way, so why should I even think about changing?” That can be a challenge, too. But maybe I can offer them a fresh perspective, even after all those years they’ve put in, and maybe I can suggest some new and sharper tools for their writing toolbox.
Can you offer D.C. Bar members any quick tips to improve their writing?
I think the psychology of writing, and legal writing in particular, is a vital but underexplored part of the process. There’s plenty of writer angst out there in the lawyers I work with. I try to help them identify the source of the heartburn and the sweaty palms. Not just to let them know they’re not alone in those concerns — you know, misery loves company. But I try to offer them new ways to think about the writing they do, to help them get past those problems.
I also think of writing, even legal writing, as an art. Which is why I’ll often draw on other creative types in other fields for relevant advice for my workshop attendees. [Attorney and lexicographer] Bryan Garner and [screenwriter] Tom Stoppard both have something to say to us. I’ll quote from [Judge] Learned Hand and Georgia O’Keeffe.
I keep asking, in one way or another, “Does the typical lawyer-writer mindset nudge your writing in certain unproductive directions? What are your default settings as writers, and do they really work for you? Are there better alternatives?”
So, we talk about all that, too — first, to encourage them to be more aware of those default settings, and then to give folks the confidence to reexamine them.
The biggest mistakes lawyers make in their writing, at least from a writing coach’s point of view? Including too much and neglecting to organize it for impact. Taking too long to say it. Forgetting to consider the view from the other side of the desk. Thinking that “If I understand what I’m saying, my reader is sure to understand it, too.” And, of course, giving in to that constant urge to “sound like a lawyer.”
I’d much rather they sound like an effective lawyer.
