legal writing: march 24 2010 class notes.

"reading as an adversary"

pronouns, modifiers, punctuation.

ex. 27.3-A: s/v agreement.
1. all of the justices were in favor of reviewing the case.
    all of the members of the court were in favor of reviewing the case.
    all of the court was in favor of reviewing the case.

2. there were no further unexecuted acts to be performed by the landlord.
    this sentence is passive and the subject is weak. 

3. the finch case, as well as the nellington case, is distinguishable from sullivan's situation.

4. not at issue in this case are those parts of section 16-6-2 criminalizing sodomy by force.
    we would find this type of sentence in the introductory section of the memo/brief.     

5. a majority of the panel has found that smith possessed sufficient standing to pursue the action.
   
6. all of the evidence in this case is circumstantial.

7. the respondent, in seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, claims that the statute violates his right to privacy under the first, third, fourth, fifth, ninth and fourteenth amendments to the constitution.

8. your problem is seven employees who want a cost of living adjustment added to their retirement benefits.

9. "known and unknown, foreseen and unforeseen bodily and personal injuries" was added to the updated version of the medical release form.

in legal writing we are usually writing about individuals. but more often we are writing about institutions (new arcadia, 9th circuit), and about corporations/ business entities. these figures are collective and act as a single unit. additionally, in the generic antecedent (a person who files a tax return...), the modern solution in lay, spoken english is to say "they/their" but we don't do that in legal writing...

exercise 27.4: pronoun agreement
1. the appellate court upheald the trial court's verdict, stating that they found no manifest abuse of discretion.
2. under cross-examination, a witness may suddenly realize that his or her earlier testimony was inaccurate.
3. someone who makes an obscene telephone call is unlikely to use his or her real name.
10. in snowadzki, the IRS successfully argued that it had nothing to do with where or how the records were going to be created.

exercise 27.5-A: ambiguous pronouns.
1. howard davis claims that the apartment manager yelled, "stop!" but never made an effort to interfere.
10. clyde reeves and his son, daryl, were both injured in two automobile accidents that occured within two months of each other. the first accident occurred on october 8, 2003, when clyde was injured in a rear-end collision with a vehicle driven by melvin made. clyde immediately received medical care for the injuries from dr. santino, his family physician. later, clyde was still involved

write a sentence that's clear and then a sentence that uses "this" to summarize:

the rain in spain stays mainly in the plains. this is a good rhyme, which makes me happy. 

exercise 27.6-B: misplaced modifiers
1. the deputy marshal testified on march 12, 2004, that a copy of the complaint was served on the defendant at his chicago residence.

dangling modifiers: modify thoughts in the writers head, but not on paper.
1. in order to answer this question, the rule that governs service of process must be examined.

commas.
use a comma for anything that is supplementary to the main sentence, and without which the sentence would still make sense.

phrases:
the white house, well for its hospitality, is hosting a dinner for ambassadors.
well known for its hospitality, the white house is hosting a dinner for ambassadors.
the white house is hosting a dinner for ambassadors, where really tasty food will be served.

coordinating conjunctions of the caribbean (FAB SOY)
we searched for treasure; we searched high and low.
we would find the treasure, or we would die trying.
we found no gold, but we found silver.
it wasn't much, yet it weighed a ton.
we hauled it to our ship, for we were worried that others would take it.
we had found what we came for, so we sailed away.

green gables is the house i grew up in, and green gables is old.
i grew up at green gables, but it is not where i currently live.
i decided to stay in green gables, or i would move to manhattan. 
i love manhattan, and yet, sometimes i miss green gables.