Too many lawyers with great ideas that could improve legal practice are discouraged from even trying to innovate. As lawyers, we assume that innovation must mean invention, technology, and programming. By accepting that assumption, we are accepting the belief that innovation is something that other people do. But that’s not true. Innovation can be any new process or new way of thinking — and that can be game changing. Innovating is for lawyers, and lawyers already have the skills to be innovators. No coding necessary.

Technologists seem mystified that lawyers don’t embrace efficiency-enhancing innovations. Despite our reluctance to face it, as lawyers, we need look no further than our rewards structure to see why. Billable hours reward inefficiency. And that rewards structure has remained in place with the help of ethical fading. We think that we’re simply using the existing business model for our benefit. We use our history and familiarity with the billable hour framework to ignore that our goals and our clients’ goals are at cross-purposes.

One mistake, possibly more than any other, is the reason behind so many failed legal technology purchases. And law firm management and software vendors are equally to blame: they both treat the purchasing decision as the end goal. The result is a landscape littered with failed technology and innovation initiatives that is bad for management and vendors alike.

It’s been nearly fifteen years since the financial crisis of 2008, yet the legal industry is still reeling from it. Lawyers felt the shift from seller’s market to buyer’s market, but we weren’t sure that it would be permanent and didn’t know how to respond. For technology enthusiasts, the answer seemed obvious: use more legal technology. That may be part of the solution (and I genuinely believe it is). However, the way technologists promote their tools is self-defeating. Early adopters encourage them, and together they create an echo chamber that is unattractive and unappealing to the vast majority of our profession.

Legal writing can be a struggle because we’re expected to be fast and perfect. This creates a high-pressure situation where we’re sure to doubt ourselves. Fear, perfectionism, self-doubt, and external pressure are the main psychological ingredients for writer’s block. So how can we overcome writer’s block and get that first draft on paper?

At the end of the school year, we’re thinking about gifts for soon-to-be graduates. The ideal gift will set a graduate up for success and provide lasting value.

While “legalese” may be the punchline for jokes about bad writing, the problem isn’t confined to the legal profession. Bad business writing is widespread and costs American companies an estimated $1.2 trillion per year. That may be a conservative estimate: a 2023 survey estimates that ineffective communication is costing American businesses $2 trillion each year. Let’s look at how unsatisfactory writing has affected businesses and why we should improve our writing skills.

Editing is a difficult task with many interconnected pieces. It requires that we know and apply writing, grammar, and style principles to complex topics. And some writing professors have found that even if you have vast knowledge of grammar, syntax, and style, you’ll still need help to apply that knowledge and thoroughly edit a piece of writing. Otherwise, you’ll either get overwhelmed with too much information or you won’t be able to remember enough to put the rules into practice while editing.

Because presenting our work in a clear and pleasing manner is so important, effective legal writers devote 35% of their time in any legal writing task to revising, editing, proofreading, and otherwise polishing the document.

Editing is the process of improving content, clarity, structure, and substance. It involves checking the content of the text to ensure that the ideas are expressed clearly and logically, and form a coherent and meaningful whole. It should be the first task you undertake after you have a fairly complete document. (Save the proofreading for later.) The purpose of editing is to make your document better. Here’s what to check: