Zausmer is fiercely dedicated to its clients and equally committed to ensuring our attorneys regularly sharpen their skills in order to achieve the most favorable outcomes.
To that end, the firm recently engaged Brian Garner – widely regarded as the leading authority on effective legal writing by The New York Times, Trial Magazine, and Harvard Law Review, among others – to conduct a daylong workshop on how to write “The Winning Brief.”
Specifically designed for litigators, the program comprised 100 tips for superior written advocacy, with examples of both good and bad motions and briefs filed in courts across the U.S. Our attorneys were shown how to:
- Capture a judge’s imagination within the first few words of a brief.
- Persuade judges – and their clerks – more reliably.
- Avoid conventions that routinely make briefs boring.
- Meet page limits with greater ease.
- Persuade judicial readers more reliably.
- Manage the brief-writing process more efficiently, whatever the deadline or time constraints.
Mr. Garner is the editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary and the author of many leading works on legal style, including Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage, The Elements of Legal Style, The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style, Legal Writing in Plain English, and The Winning Oral Argument. His latest books are Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges (co-written with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia) and Better Business Writing, which focuses on the art of communicating in the business world.
With courts speaking through the written word – often looking to the parties’ written submissions to decide cases and issue decisions and opinions – the pen truly is mightier than the sword, and Zausmer attorneys are well armed!
Because of the close relationships Mischa Boardman has with her clients, she works even harder to deliver the best possible results in the commercial litigation, eminent domain, appellate, and commercial landlord-tenant matters she handles.
