Lawyer Seeks Really Bad Writing

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Kendall Gray

I need your help.

I am in search of some truly awful legal writing.

I'm not going to make fun of it, and I'll even change the names and keep the source confidential.

I'm going to use it as a teaching tool.

On April 26th, I am scheduled to teach a unit at the Texas Law Center in Austin on styling clear sentences. Such a presentation has the potential to be deadly dull, dry, and abstract.

Rather than run that risk, I propose to illustrate proper sentence styling by taking some bad writing and making it good.

Or at least better.

I know what you're saying: physician heal thyself. And the point is well taken. I'm sure I could find plenty of turgid awfulness right on my own computer. But what I'm looking for is a candidate for the worst page of legal prose ever written. 

The worse it is when I start, the better it will look when I finish--kind of like those before and after photos at the gym this time of year.

So if you have a candidate for the worst page of legal prose ever, send it to me, and indicate whether I should change the names to protect the offenders.

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Keith Lee - January 3, 2013 11:43 AM

I'd say that the motion that was the basis of this opinion is a pretty good place to start:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_skills/2012/12/benchslap-of-the-day-district-judges-are-not-archaeologists.html

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