Michael R. Smith - Advanced Legal Writing, Third Edition: Theories and Strategies in Persuasive Writing, Third Edition

Advanced Legal Writing

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Vicki Been
Elihu Root Professor of Law
New York University School of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law
University of California, Irvine, School of Law

Richard A. Epstein
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law
New York University School of Law

Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow
The Hoover Institution
Senior Lecturer in Law
The University of Chicago

Ronald J. Gilson
Charles J. Meyers Professor of Law and Business
Stanford University
Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business
Columbia Law School

James E. Krier
Earl Warren DeLano Professor of Law
The University of Michigan Law School

Richard K. Neumann, Jr.
Professor of Law
Hofstra University School of Law

Robert H. Sitkoff
John L. Gray Professor of Law
Harvard Law School

David Alan Sklansky
Yosef Osheawich Professor of Law
University of California at Berkeley School of Law

Kent D. Syverud
Dean and Ethan A. H. Shepley University Professor
Washington University School of Law

Elizabeth Warren
Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law
Harvard Law School

ASPEN COURSEBOOK SERIES

Advanced Legal Writing

Theories and Strategies
in Persuasive Writing

Third Edition

Michael R. Smith

Professor of Law

University of Wyoming College of Law

Copyright 2002, 2008, 2013 CCH Incorporated.

Published by Wolters Kluwer Law & Business in New York.

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eISBN 978-1-4548-1917-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Michael R., 1961

Advanced legal writing: theories and strategies in persuasive writing/Michael R. Smith, professor of law, University of Wyoming, College of law.Third Edition.

pages cm. (Aspen coursebook series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN 978-1-4548-1917-2

1. Legal composition. I. Title.

KF250.S62 2012
808.06634dc23

2012045112

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To Lois Ann and Windrem
For the support. For the faith. For the sacrifice.

Summary of Contents

Contents

Preface

As the title indicates, this book covers theories and strategies in persuasive writing. It is designed to build on the introductory persuasive writing instruction offered in most first-year legal writing courses by covering specific strategies and techniques that lawyers can employ to make their writing more persuasive.

The persuasive strategies covered in this book are based not merely on anecdotal advice but on theoretical principles of human nature that are relevant to the process of persuasion. A tremendous amount of research and scholarship has been undertaken in other disciplinessuch as cognitive psychology, literary theory, and classical rhetoric theory, to name a fewregarding aspects of human nature that are important in persuasion. Accordingly, lawyers, as persuasive writers, have much to learn from these disciplines. This book analyzes persuasive writing strategies that are designed to tap into and account for some of the human behavior tendencies that have been identified and explored in these other disciplines.