Essentials for Drafting Clear Legal Rules provides a set of guidelines and techniques for drafting federal rules based on principles of clarity, consistency, and brevity.
Informed by over 30 years of experience in editing federal rules, Essentials for Drafting Clear Legal Rules is a guide for legal writing that enhances the effectiveness of legal rules through accurate and accessible language.
The document provides guidelines, systematic processes and innovative techniques that will help legal professionals:
- Break up long sentences;
- Omit needless repetition;
- Use plain language; and
- Create sentences that are well-formed and concise.
These guidelines were developed by professors, Bryan Garner and Joseph Kimble, who have served as style consultants to the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure and the advisory rules committees on redrafting the five sets of federal rules.