United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia joined West author Bryan Garner at the Texas Bar Association’s annual meeting last Friday, June 26 in Dallas.
The spoke about some of the content in their book from West, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. Garner also is editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary, now in its 9th edition.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram account of the event reports that Justice Scalia said lawyers should always strive to keep things simple:
“You don’t get any credit for eloquence,” Scalia said. “Just make it simple and tell us your point. Your job is to make a complex case simple, not a simple case complex.”
Texas Lawyer’s report on the event included a warning from Justice Scalia to characterize cited precedents accurately:
“When a judge sees that you are playing fast and loose with a citation, he is not going to believe the rest of your brief.”
The Dallas Morning News story on the Scalia/Garner discussion included an exchange between the two men, about the use of contractions:
Garner, who is editor of Black’s Law Dictionary, a standard for attorneys, advocates using contractions judiciously to lighten the style. He read a long sentence from the book in which Scalia wrote that any contractions on the pages were included with his protest.
“I had no idea how vehement one could be about contractions,” Garner said.
Garner noted several major publications that embrace contractions, including The New York Times. “I certainly want to be in that league,” the conservative Scalia playfully scoffed.
The ABA Journal has a recap of the coverage of the Scalia/Garner event, in “Scalia Airs Pet Peeves at Texas Bar Meeting“.
Want more of the wisdom of Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner?
You can see a one-hour excerpt from a free continuing legal education (CLE) event that they held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., last summer, on West LegalEdcenter.
Highlights of that 2008 Kennedy Center event also are in this Westcast video podcast:
Posted by Kevin Hunt in:
In Practice | Practice tips |
