JB

I've just gotten a chance to read through Eugene Volokh's Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers. The book is designed to teach law students how to write. Actually it's considerably more than that. It ranges all the way from grammar and style, to methods of persuasion, to organization, to using statistics, to the ethics of argument and treating people you disagree with fairly and with respect. It's all really very well done, and quite fun to read through, because Eugene has all of the virtues he wants his students to have. I'd recommend it to any law student, and to lots of other people outside the legal profession who want to polish their writing skills.

What the book actually most reminds me of are classical treatises on rhetoric, which ranged over the five canons of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Put in more modern terms, the classical canon was interested in (1) how to choose a topic, subject matter and approach; (2) how to arrange and organize materials to make them most persuasive (3) how to express oneself in a pleasing and persuasive fashion; (4) how to draw on sources of information, facts, stories, anecdotes, etc.; and (5) how to deliver the argument in a way that would connect with the audience, including how one establishes one's character as someone who should be trusted.

Although Eugene doesn't talk about the classical canons, his book corresponds to them pretty well. Indeed, I'd say that this book is a worthy sucessor to the classical approach to rhetoric, brought up to date and focusing on modern concerns. After all, Cicero and Quintillian never had to worry about how to perform a Lexis search or calculate the right margin of error in statistical surveys.

And particularly important, to me at any rate, is that Eugene emphasizes not only questions of style but also ethics. The idea that the proper study of rhetoric cannot be divorced from considerations of ethics and character is very classical. Indeed, the entire book is suffused with an ethical tone, and I mean that as a high compliment. Over and over again Eugene emphasizes the importance of self-criticism, care, moderation, and balance. Eugene is a sort of rhetorical missionary for sound judgment, fairness, and discretion. That's a good thing, especially in these frenzied times.