Using Twitter to Become a Better Legal Writer
Jan 19th, 2009 | By Josh Camson | Category: Featured, Twitter
Two lessons in written advocacy have permeated the lessons I’ve gotten from my first year legal writing teacher, my employer over the summer, several articles in the ABA Journal, a Third Circuit judge, and numerous state judges that I have spoken to about legal writing: keep it succinct and keep it simple. I have found that Twitter is a great tool for law students and lawyers alike to hone these skills.
Twitter forces its users to express thoughts in 140 characters or less. Legal professionals who use Twitter are thus required to boil down their thoughts to a short and succinct message. The service does not allow for sloppy word choices and lazy sentence construction. I often consider it a challenge to express the exact thought or tell the story I want to in the 140 character allotment. In forcing me to boil my day-to-day thoughts and experiences down, Twitter has also helped me subconsciously write better. I think about every word, and sometimes even every character as I am writing. If you are looking for a way to hone your writing, start analyzing everything the way you would a tweet. Eliminate gratuitous phrases, sentences and even characters to make things shorter and to the point.
Based on the things I have read and people I have spoken to, simplicity is the biggest challenge for most lawyers and law students. We spend so much time reading lofty court opinions littered with latin and legalese that it is quite natural for legal professionals to subconsciously emulate that style in their own writing. However, when writing for Twitter, most legal professionals are writing for a wide audience. In fact, it is probably the biggest potential audience of anything we write, since it is available to everyone with a computer. Yet none of the people I follow on Twitter use a scrap of Latin or throw around legal terms of art. That’s because (presumably in addition to the length of such words) they want their messages to be understood by everyone. The same should be true of almost everything legal professionals write. Write so that everyone can understand your points, and they will come across stronger.
Also, be sure to read more about how to use social media to become a better lawyer.
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Great Post. I came across your blog through a retweet on Twitter. I like your blog, its full of useful information. I’m an incoming law student too. I’m also thinking about starting a blog about law school, the process of going &applying to law school, lsats and pretty much everything related to it. I’m really into social media, technology & web 2.0. I guess you can say I was inspired by Obama’s use of social media to spread his image. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Thanks for writing.
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[...] blog is tightly laid out. The current page shows articles on using Twitter to become a better legal writer, a judge’s allowance of the use of Twitter in the courtroom, how to ease your firm into the use [...]
So, Twitter has turned you (the umpteenth person to date) into a much better writer.
Let’s see. Take this comment of yours over to the English department: “Legal professionals who use Twitter are thus required to boil down their thoughts to a short and succinct message.”
See what the Englicians say in response to that claim.
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Perfect work! Keep posting
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Lovely. Great site.
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Wow,super site here!
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Not sure how I missed this one, but I love it!
Josh, I must confess: I do have one lawyer I follow on Twitter who tosses in a bit of Latin. But he does it ironically, so it’s ok.
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