Articles

Here are my most recent articles:

• Reading Law or Reading Ourselves: How to Think About Posner v. Scalia
• Are You Passive-Aggressive?
• Hyphen Nation

Training

• 14 Great Books
• Chicago’s Best Tips on Great Summer Programs
• Former Summers Speak
• “Must Haves” in Associate Training
• Training Tips from an Am Law Superstar

Recruiting

• Writing Sample Blues

Providing Feedback

• Five Resolutions for Supervisors: Better Mentoring
• How to Get Memos that Help, Not Hurt
• Ten Questions for Every Writing Project
• The Beloved Supervisor
• The Superb Supervisor (ABA's Law Practice magazine)
• When Feedback Falls Flat

Legal Writing

• Absolute Power
• Advice Column: Procrastinating in the Big Apple
• Avoid These Clichés Like the Plague
• Books for Every Lawyer on Your Holiday Gift List
• Does Sotomayor Write Well?
• Can Computers Help You Write Better?
• Client Alert or Client Asleep?
• Five Resolutions for Litigators: Better Motions and Briefs
• Five Ways to Write Like The Economist
• Forensic Linguistics and the “Obamacare” Mystery
• Free Martha? Not with these Headings!
• Just Say No: Five Words and Phrases to Avoid
• Kagan vs. Scalia: Who Won Round One?
• Lighten Up
• Lessons from The New Yorker
• LWP Opinion: Kagan’s Writing Makes Her a Perfect Fit
• Not Fit to Print
• Opening Act: Do Your First Words Fall Flat?
• Sotomayor Revision: And the Winner Is . . .
• Still Saying No: Five More Words and Phrases to Avoid
• Talk to Yourself: The Rhetorical Question
• The Apple of Our Eye: Scoring the Apple v. Samsung Openings
• The Briefwriter’s Credo
• The Charlie Sheen Letter
• The State of the Union Dissected: Five Highs, Five Lows
• The Supremes Soar
• The Three Biggest Mistakes I See
• Three Great Cuts
• Warren Buffett, Writing Trainer?
• Watch Your Rhetoric
• What Makes for “Brilliant” Writing?

What Judges and Partners Want

• Four Motion Mistakes
• Judge Painter: The Most Common Errors I See
• Judges Gone Wild
• Little Things that Bug Judges
• Partner Survey Results
• Pennsylvania Judges Speak
• Ten Wounding Words and Phrases—With Alternatives
• The Flip Side of Associate Feedback
• The Perils of Advocacy
• Top Five Structure Swipes and One General Groan
• Watch Your Rhetoric

Usage and Mechanics

• Are You Passive-Aggressive?
• Capitalization Cheat Sheet
• Did Strunk & White Give “Stupid Advice”?
• Duke Lacrosse Challenge
• Eight Grammar Gripes—And How to Avoid Them
• Feeling Possessive?
• Five Grammar Myths
• Five Secret Typography Tips for Lawyers
• Four Usage Fights
• Formatting Motions and Briefs
• Hyphen Nation
• Just Between You and Me
• Million-Dollar Commas
• Parallel Universe
• Punctuating Quotations
• Resolved: Citations in Footnotes?
• The Power of Examples
• The Ricci Majority: Five Wrong Answers
• The Ricci Dissent: Five Wrong Answers
• Ricci: You Be the Grader
• Spelling in the Electronic Age
• Splitsville
• Stop Cutting “That”
• The Gun Case: Eight Misses
• The Gun Case: Eight Hits
• The Lowdown on Footnotes
• When Bad Grammar Happens to Good Candidates
• Would You Accept These Sentences?

Transactional Drafting

• All-Knowing
• Are “Indemnify” and “Hold Harmless” the Same?
• Drafting Traps
• Drafting Challenge
• Drafting Challenge Winners
• Just Between You and Me
• Reading Law or Reading Ourselves: How to Think About Posner v. Scalia
• Ten Questions for Every Agreement
• Transactional Nits
• When Are “Best Efforts” Enough?

Transatlantic Communications

• Do you speak British?

New Associates

• Five Resolutions for New Attorneys: Better Memos
• Not the Time for an Opus (Legal Times, Oct. 2007)
• Ten Questions for Every Writing Project
• Ten Tips for New Attorneys
• The Flip Side of Associate Feedback
• Three Ways to Save Research Time and Costs

Summer Associates

• Chicago’s Best Tips on Great Summer Programs
• Former Summers Speak
• Ten Questions for Every Summer Associate Writing Project
• Ten Tips for Your Summer at the Screen
• Three Ways to Save Research and Time

Marketing

• Legal Blogs (“Blawgs”)
• Stand Up and Stand Out

Office Communications

• Electronic Bliss: Write Better Emails
• Firms Formulate Guidelines for Employee Cell Phone Use