Brian Garner’s “Redbook: A Manual of Legal Style”—An Indispensable Tool.
Welcome to the March 2025 Edition of the Newsletter! If you haven’t familiarized yourself with Mr. Garner or his Redbook, we think it’s time to change that! Bryan Garner is a prominent figure in legal writing and has written numerous influential books, including recent editions of Black’s Law Dictionary.
The Redbook—which we use as much as the Bluebook—is a comprehensive guide, first published in 2002, that is widely regarded as a definitive resource for legal writing, covering essential rules and best practices for legal documents. It is designed for law students, professors, practicing lawyers, and judges. The book addresses various aspects of legal writing, including:
- Mechanics: Punctuation, capitalization, document design, numbers, and citations.
- Grammar and Usage: Parts of speech, legalese, troublesome words, editing, and proofreading.
- Legal Documents: Examples and guidance on writing case briefs, business correspondence, pleadings, motions, and more.
- Scholarly Writing: Advice on research papers, law-review articles, and book reviews
For me, the two most important aspects of the book focus on the following:
- Effective Grammar and Editing
- One of the most valuable aspects of The Redbook is its comprehensive guidance on grammar and editing in legal writing. Garner emphasizes the importance of using simple, straightforward language to avoid “stuffy” legalese that can confuse readers. The book provides detailed lists of troublesome words and phrases, offering everyday English translations to help legal writers communicate more clearly. Additionally, the section on editing and proofreading offers practical tips on how to refine legal documents, ensuring they are both precise and persuasive. By following these guidelines, legal writers can produce documents that are not only technically sound but also engaging and easy to understand.
- Document Design and Style
- Another crucial aspect covered by The Redbook is document design and style. Garner provides extensive advice on how to structure legal documents effectively, including case briefs, business correspondence, and appellate briefs. The book covers essential mechanics such as punctuation, capitalization, and the use of italics and boldface, ensuring that legal documents are visually appealing and well-organized. The latest edition also includes updates on handling quotations and addressing unconscious bias, making it a vital resource for legal writers seeking to craft compelling and respectful arguments.
The manual also provides practical examples on how to prepare various legal documents, like trial and appellate briefs. By adhering to these guidelines, legal professionals can enhance the clarity and impact of their writing, whether in court documents, scholarly articles, or everyday legal correspondence.
For followers of the manual, when you get a brief on your desk that isn’t well organized or put together really shows. And Judges see this too.
If you are struggling with writing or how to organize your documents, check this book out. It will give you comprehensive guidance, examples of legal documents, problem-solving and troubleshooting, and accessibility and organization, all from an expert authority.
CLE on AI and Legal Writing Hosted by Neven and Brendan
Are you ready to take your legal writing to the next level? We’ll be presenting a CLE on legal writing and AI for the Minnesota State, Hennepin County, and Ramsey County Bar Associations, where you’ll learn how to harness the power of artificial intelligence to enhance your writing process, refine your persuasion skills, and improve your legal documents.
Event Details:
Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Location: Zoom. Register here
Time: Noon‒1:00 PM
Tuition: Free for Hennepin County and Ramsey County Bar Association members
We want to hear from you! What specific AI-related legal writing challenges are you facing? Send us your questions or topics you’d like us to address during our sessions. Your input will help us tailor the content to your needs.
Monthly AI Image Prompts
Here are some image prompts to play with. Put them in your favorite AI-image generator and modify them to your heart’s content. Share your interesting images in the comments.
- Prompt: “An 8-bit pixel art-style birthday card featuring a retro arcade game screen. The pixelated player character is an attorney cat wearing a party hat, jumping over “Level Up! Legal Writer!” text made of pixelated balloons. From a nostalgic top-down perspective, with bright, colorful lighting effects mimicking CRT screens”
- Prompt: “1. Lego, Judge, wearing blackrobes, wielding a gigantic legal treatise entitled ““LAW”“, riding a giant whale, battle 2. Lego, angry law clerk, riding a triceratops, battle 3. Lego, Yeti legal-writing attorney, riding a pterodactyl, snowing”
- Prompt: “A book cover for Lord of the Rings-style book titled ‘Legal Writing’. At the top, the title ‘Legal Writing’ in mystical, ancient-style letters. At the bottom, the authors’ names ‘[INSERT NAME]’ and ‘[INSERT NAME’ smaller, elegant type. The central image features Mount Doom, depicted in a dramatic, dark landscape with swirling clouds and an ominous, glowing lava flow. This portrayal captures the foreboding and epic nature of the location within the story”
Monthly AI Litigation Prompt
Prompt: You are an expert contract drafter, draft a detailed and legally sound contract for [type of contract], ensuring clarity, enforceability, and protection for all parties involved. The contract should include key sections such as scope of agreement, obligations of each party, payment terms, confidentiality, termination clauses, dispute resolution, and governing law. Tailor the language to be clear, professional, and legally binding, while addressing industry-specific considerations if applicable. Ensure it complies with [jurisdiction or legal framework, if needed] and includes any necessary custom clauses based on the specific nature of the agreement.
March’s Cool (and Not Necessarily New) Tech Tool and Recommendation
Table Capture: The Google Chrome extension “Table Capture” is an invaluable tool for lawyers, offering a streamlined way to extract and manipulate tabular data from various online sources, including Perplexity AI. This extension allows legal professionals to effortlessly copy tables from web pages and export them to formats such as Microsoft Excel, CSV, and Google Sheets. For lawyers working with Perplexity AI, Table Capture simplifies the process of transferring data by enabling them to select and copy tables directly from the platform. Once captured, these tables can be easily pasted into Word documents, maintaining their structure and formatting. This functionality saves significant time and effort in data collection and analysis, enhancing productivity in legal research and document preparation.
Podcast/Media of the Month
The Agile Attorney, “Practical Uses for Legal AI – No Hype, No Fear with Damien Riehl”
Host John Grant and Damien Riehl, a lawyer and legal technologist, discuss how small and mid-sized law firms can leverage AI to enhance their practice today. He explores how AI tools can augment core legal functions like risk assessment, complexity navigation, and counsel provision. Riehl offers practical insights on using AI to automate routine tasks, increase efficiency, and deliver more value to clients. The discussion focuses on actionable strategies for firms to adapt their business models and workflows to effectively integrate AI, ultimately enabling lawyers to perform high-value work more efficiently
Law Journal Article
Generative AI is poised to transform the legal profession, but concerns persist about AI models’ tendency to hallucinate facts, especially in complex legal tasks. A study examined two emerging AI innovations—Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and AI reasoning models—to address these issues, finding that both significantly enhanced legal work quality and productivity compared to older AI models. The research revealed that RAG-powered tools maintained accuracy comparable to non-AI work, while reasoning models improved analytical depth but still produced some hallucinations, suggesting that integrating these technologies could lead to significant advancements in AI-powered legal tools.
