Resources for Legal Writers
These links provide handy reference materials
for the legal writer, whether you need help with citations, standard types
of documents, grammar, style, composition, or inspiration.
updated
February 7, 2002
 Citations
Dictionaries
Drafting
Forms
Grammar,
Style, Composition
Inspiration
and Reference
Plagiarism
Avoidance
Plain
English
Miscellaneous
Other Useful Stuff
Citations
The
ALWD
Citation Manual -- user friendly, consistent, and sensible
Constructing
and Using Short Form Citations -- help for those struggling with
id.,
supra,
etc.
Tips
for using the Bluebook
Dictionaries
Eurodic
International Legal Dictionary translates legal terms in Danish, Dutch,
English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish,
and Swedish.
Merriam-Webster
online dictionary for words in English
OneLook
search
engine for dozens of specialized on-line dictionaries, from baby names
to ballet to finance to medicine to military science to philosophy to sports
to weather. If it has a lexicon on the web, it's probably here.
Duhaime's
Law Dictionary for words in legal English, including Legalese
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Drafting
Forms
Business
and General Forms from the 'Lectric Law Library
Free
Legal Forms -- intended for the layman, includes many basic documents
and templates
The
Legal
Forms Archive
Sample
Documents from LawSmart Legal Resource
Center
Power
of Attorney forms
The
University
of Wisconsin Law Library's extensive bibliography on legal drafting
books and articles. Many, if not most, of these items will be available
in the UALR Law Library.
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Grammar, Style,
Composition
Excellent
advice for de-cluttering your legal writing from Professor Wayne Schiess:
Writing
a Brief the George Orwell Way.
Professor
Paul Brians' Common Errors
in English will help you avoid embarrassing usage errors.
Professor
Mark Grinker delivers The
Law Student's Guide to Good Writing.
Eschew,
Evade, and/or Eradicate Legalese -- Prof. Eugene Volokh's recommended
substitutions for those awkward words and phrases
Hypergrammar
at the University of Ottawa
Professor
Jack Lynch's Guide
to Grammar and Style
OWL--
Purdue
University's On-line Writing Lab
Practitioner
Joshua
Stein's practical tips for legal writing
William
Strunk's Elements
of Style (the original!)
Inspiration
and Reference
 Sage,
if snippy, advice for law firm writing from Mark
Hermann, a legal "curmudgeon"
Bartlett's
Familiar Quotations (10th ed. 1919)
Encyclopaedia
Brittanica
Infoplease
Alamanacs
Roget's
Thesaurus
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Plagiarism Avoidance
Plain English
The
SEC's
Plain English Handbook (download; requires Adobe Acrobat)
The
National
Partnership for Reinventing Government explains how to write better
documents using Plain English.
Why
Bother to Write Contracts in Plain English? Here's why.
Miscellaneous
Other Useful Stuff
Stumped
by a foreign phrase? Use Alta Vista's BabelFish, a language
translator.
A
bibliography of Great
Law Books
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