Welcome to the October edition of The Briefing Room, a monthly collection of ideas, developments, and resources for lawyers and legal professionals.
Article
Fewer Obstacles Between the Lawyer and the Page
In September, I had the chance to speak with Daniela Alexander, founder and CEO of LegalType, about the everyday mechanics of legal work. The company’s new Bluetooth keyboard gives me a reason to return to the subject. (In the interest of transparency, I serve on the advisory board of LegalType AI.)
Lawyers rarely lose a case because of a keyboard. But legal writing involves more than choosing the right words. It also means inserting section symbols, adding footnotes, managing revisions, and moving between drafting and formatting dozens of times in a single brief. Each interruption is small. Together, they pull attention away from the work that actually persuades: finding the theme, organizing the argument, and telling the court a story it can follow.
That is why I care about friction. Persuasive writing depends on sustained concentration, and the tools lawyers use should protect it rather than interrupt it. LegalType’s approach is to bring frequently used commands closer to the typist. Its materials describe shortcuts for Word and Outlook, legal and other Unicode symbols, and programmable functionality. For anyone who spends the day inside those two programs, the premise is easy to appreciate.
Good writing is also a matter of habit. Strong briefs usually result from repeated passes: cutting what the court does not need, checking every pincite, and reading the draft as a skeptical judge would. Anything that shortens the mechanical steps leaves more time for those passes, which is where most of the real improvement happens.
Before buying any specialized keyboard, a few practical questions are worth asking:
- Which legal-writing shortcuts work with your operating system and the applications you actually use?
- Does the keyboard require software installation or configuration, and does your firm’s IT policy allow it?
- Which of your repetitive tasks would it genuinely shorten?
The larger point is one I return to often. A keyboard does not decide what a brief should say. Clear thinking, disciplined editing, and accountability for every citation and assertion remain the lawyer’s job, and no tool changes that. Technology earns its place when it clears obstacles away so that judgment gets more of the time. Used that way, a better keyboard is not a shortcut around good writing. But it is a way to give good writing a little more room.
LinkedIn posts
- Patrick Hagen—five rules for legal writing for judges.
- Carolyn Elefant—security of AI platforms.
- Cedric Bond—hyperlinks in briefs.
- Yisrael Gelb—legal writing with Claude.
- Monica Ishak—fighting the good fight.
- Jeff Cunningham—the devolution of attorney signatures.
- David Williamson—AI standing orders.
- Matt Sullivan—“eviscerating the effectiveness of your oral advocacy.”
- Adriana M. de la Torre—pincites.
- Rachel Yates—being funny to a judge.
- Brendan Palfreyman—AI privilege law.
Podcasts
- “AI in Midsize Law Firms: Client Pressure, Privilege Risk, and What Actually Works,” ESI Bytes. “AI Adoption in Law Firms: What’s Really Happening Behind the Numbers,” The AI Sidebar, with host Phillip Vaden and guest Nicole Black.
- “Appellate AI with John Stobart,” California Appellate Law Podcast. Hosts Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis speak with appellate specialist John Stobart about using Claude without handing over responsibility for the brief.
- “ The Lawyer Shortage: New Data and What Law Firms Need to Know,” The Agile Attorney Podcast. John Grant revisits his account of the lawyer shortage against newer enrollment, application, and legal-market data.
- “Episode 333 – Explain why we have jurisdiction?,” The Podium and Panel Podcast.
Law Journal Articles
- “Artificial Intelligence in the Service of Self-represented Litigants—Accessing the Law with the Aid of Large-Language-Models.”
- “2026 Legal Writing Institute Generative Artificial Intelligence Faculty Survey: Findings and Practices.”
- “Transforming University Writing Centers in the Age of Generative AI: Integrating ChatGPT into Writing Support and Academic Development.”
For more information about Hellmuth & Johnson’s Legal Writing services, contact attorney Brendan Kenny or review our Appeals & Legal Writing practice page.