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Legal writing in focus - Harvard Law School | Harvard Law School

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As a lawyer, teacher, and director for the past 14 years of Harvard Law School’s First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program, Susannah Barton Tobin ’04 sees a lot of legal writing, some good, some less good. But she doesn’t entirely agree with the framing of a recent article in The Economist titled, “Why legal writing is so awful,” discussing a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which the authors blamed the continuing use of “arcane” and “archaic” legal lingo, in part, on what they perceived as lawyers’ tendency to imitate their predecessors’ poor prose. Armed with two degrees in classics, a J.D. from Harvard Law, and years of writing and teaching experience, Tobin recently spoke to Harvard Law Today about the study and offered a few tips for new law students, long-time legal practitioners, and aspiring writers of all stripes. Above all, she says, before you open your laptop or pick up your pen, know your audience and what you are trying to achi

As a lawyer, teacher, and director for the past 14 years of Harvard Law School’s First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program, Susannah Barton Tobin ’04 sees a lot of legal writing, some good, some less good. But she doesn’t entirely agree with the framing of a recent article in The Economist titled, “Why legal writing is so awful,” discussing a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which the authors blamed the continuing use of “arcane” and “archaic” legal lingo, in part, on what they perceived as lawyers’ tendency to imitate their predecessors’ poor prose

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