Ah, the artist in us

The creative lawyer. Paradigm, or oxymoron? The question is prompted by a lively blog discussion begun by a Cheshire solicitor (click here to view). My thanks to Brian Inkster for drawing my attention to it via Twitter.

The flavour of the dozen and more posts to date, from both lawyers and non-lawyers, is that you don't have to be creative to be a lawyer, but you do if you want to excel at it. One contributor points out that what you are creating is not just documents but solutions to clients' problems. Another that I think hits the mark very effectively includes this passage:

"OK we may be working within predetermined parameters, but the best legal drafting, for example the most effective contractual clauses, often shows real craftsmanship. I’d even say that legal correspondence is a lot like creative writing. A solicitor’s letter can achieve very different results depending not just on its basic contents but on how those contents are presented."

Instinctively I ally myself with that. Having had to review many forms of legal writing over the years – deeds, correspondence, book or article copy, judgments, draft law reports and digests, even statutory material – I have no doubt that the most successful expressions of the lawyer's (written) art come not just from being able to find the right style and fill in the blanks, but from being able to step back and view your work as a reader would. (The trick of applying a reader's eye was one of the first things I was told to aim for when I first cut my editorial teeth – whether or not it shows!)

Is it easy to grasp what your document is about? Is it structured so that you can follow the scheme of it? Does it avoid unnecessary words? Does it look as if it has been thought about and given a certain polish? Is it designed for the reader's needs? Good writing or drafting is hard to define, but quite easy to spot when you come across it. I am impressed at the efforts some make these days to break down even quite complex documents into more easily understood, and simply written, chunks; but many deeds, and, sadly, even much correspondence from solicitors, still fail some or all of these tests.

It is often said that today's clients assume that you know the law; in choosing a lawyer they are looking for that extra something that tells them you are the one for them. Taking an objective look at how you express yourself – and the impact it is likely to make – would be a good place to start.