The purpose of legal writing is to assist professional readers (PR) charged with making time-sensitive decisions about serious legal matters. As a law student, your PR’s include law professors, tutors, teaching assistants, bar graders, and potential employers – readers charged with making decisions about your admission to the legal profession. As an attorney, your PR’s include clients, employers, supervisors, colleagues, opposing counsel, and judges – readers charged with making timely decisions that profoundly impact the lives of real people. When tasked with determining whether a writer’s work product meets predetermined levels of professional quality, PR’s rely on internalized templates operating on both conscious and subconscious levels. This post identifies 5 qualities considered by busy PR’s when holistically assessing or grading the quality of a written legal instrument. [Read more…] about Five Things Professional Readers Expect from Legal Writers
