Many lawyers start blogs with the intention of reaching potential clients. But then they write the blog as if their audience is a bunch of other lawyers practising in their field.
This disconnect is particularly evident when a lawyer is reviewing a case. We lawyers have a difficult time discussing legal decisions in a way that is interesting and accessible to non-lawyers.
I struggled with this for years (and still do sometimes). It took me a long time to let go of a few bad habits that were probably alienating my target audience. Here are some tips I learned along the way.
1. Identify your intended audience and write with them in mind.
You may have heard this expression: "If you write for everybody, you're writing for nobody." The key to good writing, legal or otherwise, is to understand your target audience and write directly to them.
So, think about who you are trying to reach with your case comment. Is it a potential client? Do they have a specific legal problem? Do they work in a particular industry? What is their education level? How much do they know about the law?
Answer those questions and then commit — really commit — to writing to that audience. Don’t hedge your bets by attempting to make your comment appealing to both a legal and non-legal audience. It won’t work.
If you’ve decided to gear your case comment to non-lawyers, you’ll need to just ignore the fact that other lawyers may find it online. If they do, fine! They will see it is not intended for them and move on. I promise that if a lawyer reads your article and finds it simplistic, they will not assume you are a bozo. They will simply assume you were writing for a different audience.
2. Omit legal terms or define them carefully.
When writing for a non-legal audience, you must eliminate — or explain — any terms with which your target audience is unlikely to be familiar.
Remember, readers like to feel smart. No one feels smart if they need to open a separate tab to look up a term in a blog post.
For those accustomed to writing for lawyers and judges, it may feel cumbersome to explain technical terms. Legal terminology provides a handy shorthand that allows lawyers and judges to communicate complex ideas to one another. Without this shorthand, your writing may feel unusually wordy.
A couple of examples:
Instead of using the term obiter, you’ll need to write something along these lines: “The judge commented that _____, but did not decide the case on that basis.”
When discussing a limitations issue, you might be tempted to write “statute-barred” until you remember that those words are meaningless to 99% of the population. Instead, you’ll need to say that the “lawsuit was rejected because it was brought out of time.”
Clunky, right? But at least you didn’t alienate your readers.
If there are several technical legal terms that you must use because they form an integral part of the case, consider a sidebar glossary with simple, plain language definitions of those key terms.
3. Tell a story with the facts (but be respectful).
Storytelling is an effective tool for engaging your reader. If you can express the facts in a way that tells a compelling story, it's more likely your audience will keep reading.
Leverage the power of storytelling by delving into the facts of the case, even if they are not strictly relevant to the legal principle you wish to discuss. Good storytelling requires detail, so don’t anaesthetize the facts. .
On the other hand, try to be respectful of the actual parties involved in the case. Most people don’t want a legal blog to appear on the Google results page every time their name is searched. If the case arises from a personal matter (like an estates dispute or a personal injury), avoid using parties’ full first and last names. I try to refer to individual parties by a generic term such as “the employee” or “the homeowner” or “the husband” or something along those lines. I will refer to them as the “plaintiff” or “defendant” if I’m confident my reader will know what I’m talking about.
4. Gloss over some of the law’s complexity (really!).
This one’s hard for lawyers! Our ability to grasp complexity and nuance is a major part of our value proposition as legal professionals. And yet we must accept that, when reading our blog posts, our readers probably don’t care.
It’s likely your intended audience does not need to understand the full complexity of the legal analysis in order to learn something from your case comment. In fact, including every nuance makes it less likely a non-lawyer will grasp your main point, as they will be bogged down by unnecessary analysis.
So, think about what you want your reader to take away from your case comment (see Tip #5 for more on that) and skip or gloss over the rest.
A couple of examples:
You’re reviewing a constructive dismissal case. You think your intended audience of local employers would find it interesting because it presents a cautionary tale about the type of conduct they should avoid when dealing with an employee on medical leave. A large portion of the court's reasons were taken up discussing the admissibility of certain medical evidence. If that evidentiary issue is unlikely to be relevant to your intended audience, just skip it! Really. You have my permission.
You’re writing a case comment on a Supreme Court of Canada case. You’d like to highlight a comment made in a concurring judgment. Ask yourself, does your audience really need to know that the comment was made in a concurring judgment? If not, then don’t even mention it!
You’re reviewing an appellate case. Much of the court’s analysis focused on the standard of review. However, the standard of review analysis is not relevant to the main point of your case comment. In that case, don’t even mention standard of review! Even lawyers find standard of review boring. Skip it!
If you feel really uncomfortable skipping a whole portion of a case, a simple sentence will suffice: “The court also discussed _____.” Include a hyperlink to CanLII. And leave it at that.
5. Make the final section the longest one.
At the end of every case comment, insert a “takeaway” section where you explain what you want the reader to learn from the case. I used to make my takeaway section quite short until I realized it’s actually the most important part of my case comment.
When we are writing for other lawyers, we can assume they understand how the case fits into the overall scheme of the law. We forget we acquired that understanding through many years of school and practice.
So, get clear on what makes this case relevant to your target audience and explain that in very plain terms. For example:
If the case has precedential value and has changed the law in some way, say that, and explain how future cases may be decided in light of this decision.
If the decision is in line with existing law but demonstrates how the law can be applied to a specific set of facts, explain that.
If you think the case was wrongly decided and may be appealed, say as much (respectfully, of course).
If the decision provides an example of behaviour to avoid or emulate, make that explicit. If it’s a cautionary tale, tell the reader it’s a cautionary tale.
If you have five tips for how your audience can modify their behaviour in light of the advice arising from the case, spell out those five tips. Everyone loves a list!
Think of this section as your “why” - you are explaining to your audience why you took the time to review it. Your explanation will help them to feel good about having taken the time to read it.
