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22 Legal Writing: J. Legal Writing Inst. 26 (2018)
Writing about Legal Writing

handle is hein.journals/jlwriins22 and id is 30 raw text is: WRITING ABOUT LEGAL WRITING As we mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Legal Writing Institute Board's decision to create and support a peer edited journal, we are reflecting on the Journal and celebrating the discipline of legal writing. This series of essays revisits the questions originally posted by the founding Editor in Chief J. Christopher Rideout in the first printed Volume of the Journal.* The four questions are reproduced below. I. What Is Legal Writing? * If legal language is a special kind of discourse, how do its features make unusual demands on the writing done within it? For example, of what consequence for legal writing are the well- established formulas for statutory language and interpretation, or the formulaic nature of many pleadings? * Just as legal discourse has specialized features, is legal reasoning also a specialized form of argumentation, and, if so, how does it differ from other forms of analysis and argumentation? * Legal writing teachers also need to know how students learn, or acquire, legal reasoning. What relationship exists between mastering legal reasoning and learning to write for legal settings? II. How Is Legal Writing Read and Written? * How are legal documents actually written or read? We need to know what a judge responds to stylistically in a brief, or a client in reading an opinion letter, a will, or a contract. Research is also needed into the composing processes of both law students and legal professionals. * What differences exist between the composing habits of novice writers, say first-year law students, and those of more expert legal writers-third-year students, for example, who are more socialized into legal discourse, or practicing professionals? * Do certain writing habits transfer into legal writing classes from previous writing experiences, whether in college or at ajob? J. Christopher Rideout, Research and Writing about Legal Writing: A Foreword from the Editor, 1 LEG. WRITING V (1991).

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