Thinking Like a Writer: A Lawyer's Guide to Effective Writing and Editing

Chock-full of exercises, examples, and writing do's and don'ts, Thinking Like a Writer gives you step-by-step instruction on the specialized techniques you need to draft clear and persuasive legal documents. Learn how to organize material logically, grab a reader's attention, and keep it with clear, crisp content-packed sentences.

Timothy P. Terrell has been a member of the faculty of Emory University School of Law since 1976 and has been a visiting professor at the law schools at the University of Iowa, the University of San Diego, and the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England. He has taught a wide range of courses but now focuses on legal theory, legal ethics, and property law. He has published extensively in all these areas. He has also maintained connections with law practice, often presenting continuing legal education programs in ethics as well as writing at law firms, courts, and government agencies, and for organizations such as PLI, ALI-ABA, and NITA. He served for several years as the Director of Professional Development at the law firm of King and Spalding in Atlanta. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Maryland, his law degree is from Yale Law School, and he has a graduate law degree from Oxford University.

Stephen V. Armstrong, for the past fifteen years, has taught writing programs for judges and lawyers in the United States and Canada under the sponsorship of such groups as the Federal Judicial Center, the Practising Law Institute, ALI-ABA, the American Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, and the judicial education offices of several states. He has also taught writing in law firms and worked extensively with the writing of practicing lawyers, and has published widely on the topic of continuing professional development for lawyers. Presently the Director of Career Development at Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, an international law firm based in Washington, D.C., he has held similar positions at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison and at Shearman and Sterling, both in New York City; taught in the English Department at the University of Alabama, and worked as a reporter and editor for The Washington Post. He was educated at the University of Sussex (England), Yale University, and the State University of New York at Buffalo.