The Attorney as Author
David Freedman, an experienced legal and financial journalist, wrote this article titled “Four Mistakes Lawyers Make in Trying to Get Published.”
Freedman says it’s a mistake for an author to try to impress his audience. I don’t agree with that, but I do agree attorneys as authors should avoid these mistakes:
They use complex words and convoluted sentence structure. They use jargon without definitions. They talk about their successes without regard to their relevance to the topic. They make their subject broad in order to show off the breadth of their expertise, which necessarily results in a superficial article.
I certainly don’t agree with Freedman that it’s a mistake to choose a topic based on the author’s “expertise, knowledge, and experience.” If you want to write a very good article, write about something you’re familiar with, something you know about; stay away from topics that you don’t know much about. But do pick a topic that is of interest to your audience.
