BASIC LEGAL DRAFTING offers down-to-earth instruction on how to draft well-organized and clearly articulated legal documents. A culmination of twenty-five years of teaching in the highly regarded Legal Drafting Program at the University of Florida College of Law, the book is designed to be used as a resource for law students and practicing attorneys, as well as a textbook for drafting classes. The text is particularly strong in its discussions of how to organize a document, often the most difficult task facing a drafter and typically under-addressed in other drafting manuals. Equally useful are the very concrete recommendations on how to articulate the language of a document in order to achieve clarity and precision. The text helpfully distinguishes traditional drafting principles from common conventions and stylistic preferences. The litigation chapter addresses complaints, answers and motions. Useful examples range from a simple negligence complaint to a complex statutory-based multi-count complaint and appropriate responses. The contracts chapter includes an extensive discussion, with examples, on how to create for any contract a logical, coherent framework that underlines the drafter's (and presumably the client's) intentions. The chapter addresses in detail the articulation of particular provisions, including definitions, termination and exculpatory provisions. Its comprehensive discussion of how to recognize and avoid various types of ambiguity will prove useful beyond the contract drafting context. The legislation chapter identifies common legislative protocols and applies, within those protocols, many of the organization and articulation principles set out in the contracts chapter. While the text uses litigation documents, contracts and legislation as the bases for its discussions, Basic Legal Drafting offers practical, realistic advice and instructions that will be useful to the drafter of any type of legal document.

“This easy-to-follow guide is useful both as a general course of instruction and as a targeted aid in solving particular legal writing problems.” —Harvard Law Review Clear, concise, down-to-earth, and powerful—all too often, legal writing embodies none of these qualities. Its reputation for obscurity and needless legalese is widespread. For more than twenty years, Bryan A. Garner’s Legal Writing in Plain English has helped address this problem by providing lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. The leading guide to clear writing in the field, this indispensable volume encourages legal writers to challenge conventions and offers valuable insights into the writing process that will appeal to other professionals: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. Accessible and witty, Legal Writing in Plain English draws on real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching. Trenchant advice covers all types of legal materials, from analytical and persuasive writing to legal drafting, and the book’s principles are reinforced by sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section. In this new edition, Garner preserves the successful structure of the original while adjusting the content to make it even more classroom-friendly. He includes case examples from the past decade and addresses the widespread use of legal documents in electronic formats. His book remains the standard guide for producing the jargon-free language that clients demand and courts reward. “Those who are willing to approach the book systematically and to complete the exercises will see dramatic improvements in their writing.” —Law Library Journal

An eagerly anticipated second edition of this established and highly regarded text teaches the key practice skill of contract drafting, with emphasis on how to incorporate the business deal into the contract and add value to the client's deal. Features: More exercises throughout the book, incorporating More precedents for use in exercises Exercises designed to teach students how to read and analyze a contract progressively more difficult and sophisticated New, multi-draft exercises involving a variety of business contracts New and refreshed examples, including Examples of well-drafted boilerplate provisions More detailed examples of proper way to use shall Multiple well-drafted contracts with annotations Revised Aircraft Purchase Agreement exercise to focus on key issues, along with precedents on how to draft the action sections and the endgame sections. Expanded explanations of endgame provisions, along with examples and new exercises

Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is a practical, step-by-step guide to drafting legislation. This "how to" book untangles the web of confusion and technical detail that surrounds legislative drafting and presents drafting in an easy-to-understand way. In so doing, legislative drafting is shown to be a fun, intellectually engaging endeavor and not an intimidating prospect to be dreaded. In short, this concise, user-friendly guide seeks to de-mystify legislative drafting. Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step includes the following: * A five-step framework for analysis to guide the drafter in converting any legislative proposal into an actual bill, resolution, or amendment. * Easy-to-learn rules to carry out each step of drafting. * More than 150 examples of draft legislative language. * 19 charts and tables illustrating the text. * 9 drafting exercises, together with the answers, to test drafting skills. * A description of the United States legislative process, as viewed by a legislative drafter. * 16 House and Senate bill, resolution, and amendment forms. Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is designed to assist legislators, their staffs, and all who read or write legislation to better understand the basics of legislative drafting and the important role that well written legislation plays in promoting the rule of law. To this end, this guide may be used either as an essential reference tool for any office drafting legislation or as an introduction to legislative drafting for anyone seeking to learn the craft. Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is copublished by the International Law Institute. "The people who are best at doing things are not always equally adept at explaining what they do and how they do it. That is why I am so pleased that we have Arthur Rynearson''s Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step to explain, carefully and lucidly, how bills and other legislative documents are drafted for consideration by Congress in Washington. This book should be required reading for every Representative and Senator, every congressional staffer involved in the legislative process, every lobbyist, and every lawyer and law student who is interested in public policy and how it is made. ...[A] careful reader will come to appreciate Mr. Rynearson''s enthusiasm for and pride in his chosen profession. ...What they also will come to appreciate is that there are so many serious and dedicated people like Mr. Rynearson who devote their professional lives to enabling our government to do what we want it to do." -- Dr. Stanley Bach (Amazon.com review) "Mr. Rynearson has produced a guide for the legislative drafter that is both concise and complete. It is very well organized and presents a very complicated subject as clearly and directly as possible. Throughout the book, Mr. Rynearson has included drafting problems that are perfectly conceived to test the reader''s understanding of each of the teaching points presented. And he very thoughtfully provides answers for the exercises at the end of the book. The book concludes with a series of appendices that should be very helpful to the aspiring drafter. All-in-all, Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is a highly readable and useful introduction to the art of legislative drafting, but it would also serve well as an excellent refresher course for the experienced drafter." -- Francis L. ("Frank") Burk, Jr., Legislative Counsel of the United States Senate, 1991-1999, and currently self-employed as a legislative drafting consultant "Arthur Rynearson''s quarter century career as legislative draftsman, ultimately as Deputy Legislative Counsel of the United States Senate, enables him to draw on the experience of drafting literally thousands of legislative instruments for the US Senate. [...] There is a very detailed table of contents, a useful index and more than 50 pages of exercises (and answers!). To conclude: it has been an almost unadulterated pleasure to read this book. I heartily recommend it." -- Don Wallace, Jr., Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, and Chairman, International law Institute

In the second edition of this highly regarded text, the authors show how and why traditional legal language has developed the peculiar characteristics that make legal documents inaccessible to the end users. Incorporating recent research and case law, the book provides a critical examination of case law and the rules of interpretation. Detailed case studies illustrate how obtuse or outdated words, phrases and concepts can be rewritten, reworked or removed altogether. Particularly useful is the step-by-step guide to drafting in the modern style, using examples from four types of common legal documents: leases, company constitutions, wills and conveyances. Readers will gain an appreciation of the historical influences on drafting practice and the use of legal terminology. They will learn about the current moves to reform legal language, and receive clear instruction on how to make their writing clearer and their legal documents more useful.

This book gives the practitioner a detailed treatment of the principles and applications of effective legal drafting. New material on drafting strategy, "verbal sexism", and the use of computers for word processing of legal documents is included in the work.