Write Better Now

They didn’t tell us this in law school, but the University of Chicago Law School has a Manual of Legal Citation that is, in many ways, much simpler and therefore more useful to the practitioner than The Bluebook. It’s also free.

Bryan Garner, in The Elements of Legal Style, commends The Bluebook and the ALWD Citation Manual and notes that “allowing discretionary forms of citation, as [the Chicago manual] does would cause inconsistencies to proliferate: the librarian’s and cite-checker’s nightmare.” This is only a small concern to the practitioner whose goal is not law-review publication but persuasion.

Download the “Maroonbook” here. It will go great with your new copy of Typography for Lawyers.