Books to help with Brief Writing?

[LawLady]

Hi there....the legal writing program at my school (like everyone else's) sucks.  I could really use some help with writing my trial level brief this semester.  Are there any good books out there on this?  I happen to have drawn a tough grader (again) and need to do well to make up for an average grade last semester.

[dorsia]

I like Bryan A. Garner, The Winning Brief (2d. ed., 2004) for brief writing.  The author does some things differently than others, such as his issue statements and his preference of using footnotes rather than textual citations, but the book is very good.  For style, few books best The Chicago Manual of Style.

[johns259]

Writing to Win by Steven D. Stark is a great little book about legal writing, and he points you to other good legal writing books throughout it.

[LawLady]

Thanks for the recommendations!

[Ronald Hyatt]

Hey, I just noticed that Lexis has a book available online: Winning on Appeal: Better Briefs and Oral Argument by Hon. Ruggero J. Aldisert.

You can either search for the source by it's name, or browse to it under:

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Secondary Legal/National Institute for Trial Advocacy