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Advanced Legal Writing: Theories and Strategies in Persuasive Writing | 
| Author: Michael R. Smith
Publisher: Aspen Publishers
Category: Book
Buy New: $60.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1409710
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
ISBN: 0735556598
Dewey Decimal Number: 340
EAN: 9780735556591
ASIN: 0735556598
Publication Date: June 15, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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| Customer Reviews:
 The best advanced legal writing textbook on the market May 10, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This textbook has completely revolutionized my teaching and my students' comprehension of peruasion as an advocacy tool. I agree with the other reviewer that this book is scholarly, but I think that any practicing attorney who takes the time to read it will see an almost immediate benefit in their lawyering skills. The trick to reading this book is to actually read it. You can't skim it. The way that I went through it was with a partner (a senior research student). We met weekly over coffee and discussed a chapter. That provided the incentive to read a chapter/week, which is a good pace. If an attorney is going to do that, I suggest calling Aspen and getting a copy of the teacher's manual. That is a great resource, complete with exercise answers and even with suggestions "just do this exercise" if you aren't doing them for grades. Just reading the exercise answers really helps.
Readers have the opportunity to study theories behind some of those 1L "maxims of legal writing" that, unfortunately, are so often taught as "top 10 rules for facts sections" and the like. The theories include classical rhetoric, advertising, literary metaphors, lingustics (the use of inherent and creative metaphors) and the cognitive psychology of storytelling. That last is used to teach students why they are often advised "you need to include more rule explanation in your legal analysis."
If you want to get a sense of how great this book really is, look at chapters 6 and 11 (the title of Chapter 11 is a bit intimidating but know that it teaches when/how to use parentheticals versus in-text explanations).
This isn't just the opinion of some starry-eyed legal writing professor. My law students have all given uniformly positive evaluations. Even when students hate me they nevertheless love the book and the course.
P.S. To my students: the teacher's manual won't help too much with the graded exercises, sorry. You are free to come by and ask to see it any time you want.
 Thoughtful and deep November 18, 2003
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is the most thoughtful book on persuasive writing I've ever read. It approaches the subject with scholarly exuberance. It covers many fine points that are often missing from texts on persuasive legal writing: ethical persuasion, rhetoric, polish. But to the extent that it is scholarly and is a text for an advanced legal writing class in law school, it will probably seem a little too much for the practicing lawyer. Only the most dedicated appellate specialist will find it useful, I predict.
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