Point Taken

If I were a judge, I'd make this required reading for my law clerks. Point Taken is an invaluable resource for any judge who cares about the craft of writing opinions." -David Lat, Managing Editor, Above the Law


In Point Taken, Guberman has done both the wonderful and the impossible. He's done a wonderful job synthesizing the craft of writing judicial opinions. His insights and techniques are extraordinary, and he demonstrates great discipline in presenting a menu of approaches rather than dictating a particular style. He provides a superb tool for judges and arbitrators (and, yes, law clerks) to do their jobs better while cultivating a style that suits them. He
also achieved what I thought was impossible: he transformed legal writing into a guilty pleasure. The book is fun, which is rare for any work that teaches so much." -Noah Messing, Lecturer, Yale Law School and AAA Arbitrator

Ross Guberman is the president of Legal Writing Pro. From Alaska to Paris and Hong Kong, he has conducted more than a thousand workshops on three continents for many of the world's largest and most prestigious law firms, for judges and courts, and for corporations and governmental agencies. He has spoken at several judicial conferences, has trained both new and experienced federal judges, and has worked with many judges abroad as well. Mr. Guberman is a graduate of Yale, the Sorbonne, and The University of Chicago Law School. He is the coauthor of Deal Struck: The World's Best Drafting Tips (Legal Writing Pro Press, 2014) and the author of Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation's Top Advocates (Now in its Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2014).

Introduction ; Part I. Set the Stage: The Opening ; Part II. The Tale: The Facts ; Part III. The Meat: The Legal Analysis ; Part IV. The Words: Style "Must-Haves" ; Part V. The Words: "Nice-to-Haves" in Style ; Part VI. Dissents: The Road Not Traveled ; Part VII. Appendices ; Biographies ; Practice Pointers ; Index