"This book is a practical, to-the-point text covering the fundamental working parts of a contract and how one should be prepared. It provides an overview of the issues and processes involved in drafting contracts and transactional documents. It enables students to analyze the basic structure of contracts and other deal documents and develop the macro and micro techniques used to efficiently create those documents with precision and clarity. It provides the principles necessary for an understanding of the common structures of transactional documents and their provisions that can then be applied to specific transactions. This book also covers some of the substantive laws that may affect contracts."--Publisher's website.

This easy-to-use primer lays out 135 principles of clear writing, dictation, tone, grammar, syntax, organization, and format. Filled with before-and-after examples and illustrations from the legal world, the book is both a welcome refresher for the practicing lawyer and an indispensable reference for anyone in the legal profession.

BASIC LEGAL DRAFTING offers down-to-earth instruction on how to draft well-organized and clearly articulated legal documents. A culmination of twenty-five years of teaching in the highly regarded Legal Drafting Program at the University of Florida College of Law, the book is designed to be used as a resource for law students and practicing attorneys, as well as a textbook for drafting classes. The text is particularly strong in its discussions of how to organize a document, often the most difficult task facing a drafter and typically under-addressed in other drafting manuals. Equally useful are the very concrete recommendations on how to articulate the language of a document in order to achieve clarity and precision. The text helpfully distinguishes traditional drafting principles from common conventions and stylistic preferences. The litigation chapter addresses complaints, answers and motions. Useful examples range from a simple negligence complaint to a complex statutory-based multi-count complaint and appropriate responses. The contracts chapter includes an extensive discussion, with examples, on how to create for any contract a logical, coherent framework that underlines the drafter's (and presumably the client's) intentions. The chapter addresses in detail the articulation of particular provisions, including definitions, termination and exculpatory provisions. Its comprehensive discussion of how to recognize and avoid various types of ambiguity will prove useful beyond the contract drafting context. The legislation chapter identifies common legislative protocols and applies, within those protocols, many of the organization and articulation principles set out in the contracts chapter. While the text uses litigation documents, contracts and legislation as the bases for its discussions, Basic Legal Drafting offers practical, realistic advice and instructions that will be useful to the drafter of any type of legal document.

Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is a practical, step-by-step guide to drafting legislation. This "how to" book untangles the web of confusion and technical detail that surrounds legislative drafting and presents drafting in an easy-to-understand way. In so doing, legislative drafting is shown to be a fun, intellectually engaging endeavor and not an intimidating prospect to be dreaded. In short, this concise, user-friendly guide seeks to de-mystify legislative drafting. Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step includes the following: * A five-step framework for analysis to guide the drafter in converting any legislative proposal into an actual bill, resolution, or amendment. * Easy-to-learn rules to carry out each step of drafting. * More than 150 examples of draft legislative language. * 19 charts and tables illustrating the text. * 9 drafting exercises, together with the answers, to test drafting skills. * A description of the United States legislative process, as viewed by a legislative drafter. * 16 House and Senate bill, resolution, and amendment forms. Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is designed to assist legislators, their staffs, and all who read or write legislation to better understand the basics of legislative drafting and the important role that well written legislation plays in promoting the rule of law. To this end, this guide may be used either as an essential reference tool for any office drafting legislation or as an introduction to legislative drafting for anyone seeking to learn the craft. Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is copublished by the International Law Institute. "The people who are best at doing things are not always equally adept at explaining what they do and how they do it. That is why I am so pleased that we have Arthur Rynearson''s Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step to explain, carefully and lucidly, how bills and other legislative documents are drafted for consideration by Congress in Washington. This book should be required reading for every Representative and Senator, every congressional staffer involved in the legislative process, every lobbyist, and every lawyer and law student who is interested in public policy and how it is made. ...[A] careful reader will come to appreciate Mr. Rynearson''s enthusiasm for and pride in his chosen profession. ...What they also will come to appreciate is that there are so many serious and dedicated people like Mr. Rynearson who devote their professional lives to enabling our government to do what we want it to do." -- Dr. Stanley Bach (Amazon.com review) "Mr. Rynearson has produced a guide for the legislative drafter that is both concise and complete. It is very well organized and presents a very complicated subject as clearly and directly as possible. Throughout the book, Mr. Rynearson has included drafting problems that are perfectly conceived to test the reader''s understanding of each of the teaching points presented. And he very thoughtfully provides answers for the exercises at the end of the book. The book concludes with a series of appendices that should be very helpful to the aspiring drafter. All-in-all, Legislative Drafting Step-by-Step is a highly readable and useful introduction to the art of legislative drafting, but it would also serve well as an excellent refresher course for the experienced drafter." -- Francis L. ("Frank") Burk, Jr., Legislative Counsel of the United States Senate, 1991-1999, and currently self-employed as a legislative drafting consultant "Arthur Rynearson''s quarter century career as legislative draftsman, ultimately as Deputy Legislative Counsel of the United States Senate, enables him to draw on the experience of drafting literally thousands of legislative instruments for the US Senate. [...] There is a very detailed table of contents, a useful index and more than 50 pages of exercises (and answers!). To conclude: it has been an almost unadulterated pleasure to read this book. I heartily recommend it." -- Don Wallace, Jr., Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, and Chairman, International law Institute

In the second edition of this highly regarded text, the authors show how and why traditional legal language has developed the peculiar characteristics that make legal documents inaccessible to the end users. Incorporating recent research and case law, the book provides a critical examination of case law and the rules of interpretation. Detailed case studies illustrate how obtuse or outdated words, phrases and concepts can be rewritten, reworked or removed altogether. Particularly useful is the step-by-step guide to drafting in the modern style, using examples from four types of common legal documents: leases, company constitutions, wills and conveyances. Readers will gain an appreciation of the historical influences on drafting practice and the use of legal terminology. They will learn about the current moves to reform legal language, and receive clear instruction on how to make their writing clearer and their legal documents more useful.

The professional's favored tool for over a decade, this backbone reference provides a comprehensive set of drafting elements that can be used from contract to contract. Move step-by-step through the contract-creation process --from conducting the initial client meeting to closing the deal, with detailed discussions of the eleven, essential drafting elements, parties, recitals, subject, consideration, warranties and representations, risk allocation, conditions, performance, dates and term, boilerplate, and signatures. A favorite reference tool for professional drafters for over a decade, Drafting Effective Contracts combines a clear analysis of how effective agreements are structured with a practical breakdown of the essential elements of any contract-- giving you the best way to draft contracts. This completely updated practical reference guide presents a consistent structural analysis and a comprehensive set of drafting elements that can be used from contract to contract. You are led step-by-step through the process by which contracts are created, given clear sample contract provisions, and offered direction around the obstacles that may be encountered in drafting agreements for goods and services, promissory notes, guaranties, and secured transactions. Drafting Effective Contracts provides a complete handbook for drafting legal agreements that work. For starters, you get a practical and comprehensive approach to the overall contract process--from conducting the initial client meeting to closing the deal. You'll find a detailed discussion of the 11 drafting elements that every contract may have: Parties Recitals Subject Consideration Warranties and Representations Risk Allocation Conditions Performance Dates and Term Boilerplate Signatures After you get a solid explanation of these essential elements and how they're assembled to create effective contracts, you get key strategies for negotiating the agreement and closing the deal. You get an overview of the legal concepts that underpin various types of agreements --such as promissory notes, guaranties, security agreements, and agreements for the sale of goods and services. Then you'll see how to apply the drafting elements to create the finished contract. You also get an array of sample agreements and contracts as well as statutory material. Only Drafting Effective Contracts combines the best benefits of a forms book and a treatise to give you the most complete tool for building effective legal agreements.

Mastering Legal Analysis and Drafting seeks to emphasize the fundamental structure and methods of legal drafting, which, the authors contend, are grounded in a surprisingly few, elemental rules and techniques of legal analysis and deployment of legal authorities amid relevant facts. It is designed to help the novice legal drafter identify those elemental rules and techniques and show how they are used to prepare effective legal writing in different formats, most of which share common elements and structures. The book begins with a discussion of legal analysis, followed by a discussion of general drafting principles and rules, and then proceeds to apply these concepts in the following chapters to specific forms of legal writing including:client letters, demand letters, research memoranda, motions and supporting documents, appellate briefs, contracts and instruments, and legislation. It closes with a chapter on "writing to build a record" that reprises the other chapters and highlights the key concepts.

Focusing on the argumentative, narrative, and descriptive style found in legal briefs and judicial opinions, this text should be a thought provoking examination of effective argumentation in law.

Haggard's Legal Drafting in a Nutshell provides guidelines for producing documents that serve the client's needs, solve existing problems, and prevent future problems. Authoritative coverage overviews the general drafting process and offers tips on getting started. Provides guidelines for drafting within the law and choosing the proper concept. Also identifies ambiguities, definitions, and drafting ethics.