You know the feeling: You write “codified” or “assuming arguendo” or “inter alia” or “vis-à-vis,” and just above that little bump at the back of your head, you feel this warmth, like if a neurosurgeon cracked open both layers of your skull, she would see, shining through the dura mater, a soft purple light, pulsating.

That’s The Warm Glow. We get The Warm Glow when we write this stuff, because writing this stuff makes us feel like an inside member of a very tiny, select group of people (not very well liked, but respected) called lawyers. Anytime you feel The Warm Glow, you know there’s a problem.

Occasionally, I get to teach to a group of Summer Associates at a large firm. I love working with this group because it is the perfect time to tell them the most important thing anyone will ever tell them as long as they practice law:

Writing like a lawyer IS the problem.

You don’t want to Write-Like-A-Lawyer. You want to Think-Like-A-Lawyer. But you want to write like a warm, logical, compassionate, intelligent, fair-minded human. Removing or replacing the words and phrases that produce The Warm Glow is an important step in that direction.

So the next time you’re working on a memorandum or brief and suddenly feel like people can see your aura, check the words you’ve just written, and try to delete or replace them. And, yes, that includes your favorite: "pursuant to."