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September 21, 2003

Legal Fat Heads

New-to-me blog Civil Procedure led me to this little article, Bemused About Blogging. As CivPro says, lawyers can be the worst sort of snobs.

Another case in point: I was just reading about how to write a statement of facts and my legal writing text just told me that:

writing this key part of the brief is more challenging than writing a short story or novel. It is harder because you cannot make up desirable facts or imagine away undesirable facts, and because you must appear to persuade without appearing to do so.

Exqueeze me? Writing a statement of facts is harder than writing a novel!? Gee, I guess that's why novelists are a dime a dozen, eh? I mean, anybody can make stuff up, right? I submit that it's damned hard to write a novel, even a really crap one. If it was so easy to make stuff up and write a novel, we wouldn't value good novels so highly, would we? But just like those lawyers who think they're above blogging or pro wrestling, the writers of this textbook think they're above novelists. Whatever.

The good part about this approach to legal writing is that emphasizes that legal contests are really story-writing contests where the "facts" are largely what you make them. I'm sure not all lawyers and legal writing text writers are that ready to take the linguistic turn, but they're already halfway there.

Oh yeah: We survived the hurricane w/nary a scratch. Our power didn't even flicker once and the rain never seemed that heavy. Sure, there are trees down all over the place and thousands of people are still without power, but in this little bubble that is our neighborhood, it was just a little storm. We're the lucky ones, I guess.

Posted September 21, 2003 11:49 AM | law school


Reminds me of a genetics professor I once had who, to a lecture hall full of honors students (quite a few of whom were humanities majors of one flavor or another), declared that "Reading a science textbook is not like reading literature. You need to review the material carefully and ask yourself questions as you read..."

It was then I decided that completing the daily crossword puzzle would be a better use of my time than listening to lecture.

Glad to hear you two survived the hurricane. I was wondering if you'd been swept away. :)

Posted by: Raquel at September 22, 2003 09:44 AM

Hey Raquel! Yeah, it's funny how comparing lit. study to study of other subjects makes lit. look better than ever. Don't get me wrong; I'm not going back, but I do get nostalgiac for it—especially at times like this. Must fight not to laugh in face of "reasonable person" standards!

Hope all is well in your happy world....

Posted by: ambimb at September 23, 2003 07:29 AM

My theory on the 'novels are less difficult to write' comes down to the fact that academic professors are horribly jealous that 'talentless hacks' like John Grisham make more money with their novels than they do with their textbooks, no matter how they jack up the price.

Posted by: A. Rickey at September 28, 2003 11:41 PM

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