Acknowledgments to the First Edition
I would like to recognize and thank the following people who helped me in many different ways as I worked on this book:
Those of us who teach legal writing are blessed by the existence of a strong corps of supportive colleagues.
I am grateful to the founders of the Legal Writing Institute, Anne Enquist, Laurel Currie Oates, and Christopher Rideout, of Seattle University. They were instrumental in the profound changes that have occurred in the teaching of legal writing over the past 20 years; without those changes I would not be teaching legal writing or writing about it. I also thank the colleagues whose work first taught me that there is a doctrine of legal writing that can be analyzed and communicated to others: Elizabeth Fajans, Jill Ramsfield, Mary Barnard Ray, Marjorie Rombauer, Helene Shapo, and Marilyn Walter. At Legal Writing Institute Conferences and, later, at conferences of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, I have been able to learn and grow through the exchange of ideas with colleagues who became friends: Coleen Barger, Linda Edwards, Richard Neumann, Terri LeClercq, Grace Tonner, Christy Nisbett, Sue Liemer, JoAnne Durako, Steve Johansen, Terry Seligmann, Jane Kent Gionfriddo, Ellen Mosen James, Anita Schnee, Steve Jamar, and Jan Levine. I am grateful to Judy Stinson and Samantha Moppett, who field-tested the book with their students, to my first colleagues, Julie Jenkins and Mary Kate Kearney, and to my first teachers of legal writing and how to teach it, Nancy Elizabeth Grandine and Teresa Godwin Phelps.I thank my current and former colleagues at Ohio State who provided support, read drafts of this document, and gave advice early and often: Doug Berman, Debby Merritt, Camille Hebert, Chris Fairman, Nancy Rapoport, Cre Johnson, Terri Enns, Steve Huefner, Kathy Northern, and Ruth Colker. I also thank the three Ohio State deans who have affected my life in significant ways: Frank Beytagh, who hired me; Gregory H.
Williams, who appointed me to the tenure track; and our current dean, Nancy Hardin Rogers, who provided critical support at a crucial time in my career. Liz Cutler Gates, Art Hudson, and Loraine Brannon provided technical support, and Nancy Darling, Shirley Craley, Carol Peirano, and Michelle Whetzel-Newton provided administrative support. Finally, I would like to recognize Kimberly Town Abels, now of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who suggested that the “macro-micro-final draft” method would be suitable for legal writing, and Jacqueline Jones-Royster, Associate Professor of English and Vice Chair for Rhetoric and Composition at the Ohio State University, who suggested that I develop a self-grading instrument for my students.I have been teaching legal writing since 1982, and I have learned so much from my students over that time. Students at Ohio State have been field testing versions of this text for the past two years, and versions of the self-graded draft since 1993. I want to thank especially the students at Ohio State who have allowed me to use and adapt their work for the examples in this text: RonNell Jones, Tiffany C. Miller, Peter Nealis, Timothy G. Pepper, Rebecca Woods, Bridget Hayward Kahle, Steven Webb, Michael Duffy, Andrew Kruppa, and Christopher Snyder. I am also grateful to the students whose work gave me insight into appellate advocacy, and who sent me examples of good and bad writing after they entered the practice of law, including Glenda Gelzleichter, John Lowe, Peter Rosato, Kevin Kessinger, Angelique Paul, Kathleen Lyon, Cynthia Roselle, Yvonne Watson, and Sean Harris. I particularly thank Jen Manion, research assistant extraordinaire.
I have learned something from each of the many adjuncts with whom I have worked over the years, but especially from Robert Burpee, Peggy Corn, Cynthia Cummings, Hilary Damaser, Ken Donchatz, Rita Eppler, Sean Heasley, Dan Jones, Randy Knutti, and Stephen Wu.
I thank the people at Aspen who guided and encouraged me along the way, including Lynn Churchill, Betsy Kenny, Carol McGeehan, Jay Boggis, Michael Gregory, Peggy Rehberger, and George Serafin. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers who gave helpful advice about the manuscript.
Finally, I thank the people at the home front who helped and supported me, including my parents, Ben and Pat Beazley; Trish and Dick Sanders, Mike and Julie Beazley, Marlene and Rick Fields, Mary Slupe, Laura Sanders, and Laura Williams; and of course, my daughters, Betsy and Annie Pillion; and my dear husband, David Pillion.