Point Made Quotes

“In the end, then, the best advocates appear to sense that judges have predictable questions when reading a section: 1. What’s the standard? 2. How does it apply in cases like this one? 3. Which courts have done what you’re asking us to do—and why? 4. What about the other side’s points? 5. What’s the bottom line?”
― Ross Guberman, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates

“As Chief Justice William Rehnquist once said, the challenge is to make order out of chaos: “The brief writer must immerse himself in this chaos of detail and bring order to it by organizing—and I cannot stress that term enough—by organizing, organizing, and organizing, so that the brief is a coherent presentation of the arguments in favor of the writer’s clients.”1”
― Ross Guberman, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates

“the challenge is to make order out of chaos: “The brief writer must immerse himself in this chaos of detail and bring order to it by organizing—and I cannot stress that term enough—by organizing, organizing, and organizing, so that the brief is a coherent presentation of the arguments in favor of the writer’s clients.”1”
― Ross Guberman, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates

“When Chief Justice John Roberts was an advocate, he once wrote that determining the “best” technology for controlling air pollution is like asking people to pick the “best” car: Mario Andretti may select a Ferrari; a college student a Volkswagen Beetle; a family of six a mini-van. A Minnesotan’s choice will doubtless have four-wheel drive; a Floridian’s might well be a convertible. The choices would turn on how the decisionmaker weighed competing priorities such as cost, mileage, safety, cargo space, speed, handling, and so on. I have shared this passage with lawyers all over the world. “Brilliant,” exclaim some. “Look how he gets his point across,” say others. But they all agree on one thing: “Writing like that is an art.” This book will reveal the craft behind that art. I am convinced that if you learn why the best advocates write the way they do, you can import those same techniques into your own work.”
― Ross Guberman, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates

“ood legal writing does not sound as though it was written by a lawyer. Good legal writing, like good writing in general, is writing that keeps the readers’ interests foremost.13”
― Ross Guberman, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates

“these three judicial fears: 1. The fear of misconstruing a doctrine or statute. 2. The fear of creating new duties, rules, or defenses. 3. The fear of reaching an unfair result or causing harm.”
― Ross Guberman, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates