Website: Writing Resources for Legal Writers: Home (Intro &amp; Links to Other Guides)

Introduction

This guide presents resources to help you with your writing. It is aimed at legal writers, so includes works on legal writing specifically—but since law students and lawyers are using English, it also includes some material on English usage and writing generally.

textbooks on legal writing
guides on English usage, punctuation, and so on
books about writing
email newsletters and other resources to help you develop your skills

It also links to related guides.

Related Guides

Bluebook 101 [Gallagher Law Library]
Information about The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.
Citation Styles & Tools [UW Libraries]
If you are writing in a field outside law, you might be asked to use another citation style (e.g., MLA, APA). This page will get you started.
Diversity Readings in Legal Analysis, Research & Writing [Gallagher Law Library]
Selected readings related to Legal Analysis, Research & Writing. Topics include bias in language, storytelling, and outsider scholarship.
Part of larger guide, Diversity Readings Related to First-Year Courses
Drafting Contracts: Formbooks & Drafting Resources [Gallagher Law Library]
Encyclopedias & Dictionaries [UW Libraries]
Variety of online encyclopedias. Dictionaries include UW-licensed OED and dictionaries for non-English languages.
Legal Dictionaries [Gallagher Law Library]
U.S. legal dictionaries (general and specialized), historical dictionaries (want to know how dictionaries defined your term when a statute was drafted?), bilingual and multilingual legal dictionaries.
Legal Writing Resources for Judicial Clerks and Externs [UNC Law Library]
Blog post from University of North Carolina's law library (July 2, 2021).
Legislative Process
Includes bill drafting, lobbying, and statutory interpretation.
SSRN [Gallagher Law Library]
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is an open-access repository where authors can post papers and researchers can find and download them.
Study Aids for Law Students [Gallagher Law Library]
Books and other materials related to law school classes and law school success.
Washington State Bar Exam Preparation
Writing for & Publishing in Law Reviews [Gallagher Law Library]
General advice, finding & developing topics, preemption checking, choosing where to submit, submitting papers.
Writing Resources [UW Libraries]
Links to campus writing centers.
Includes handouts from Odegaard Writing & Research Center (OWRC).
Zotero and Other Citation Management Tools [Gallagher Law Library]