Writing for Readers — Be Interesting
Attorneys tend to spend their days writing a certain way — the way of contracts and briefs, provisions and terms, agreements and statements of fact — all for a small audience of judges and clerks and other counsel.
Now, suppose you’re an attorney. And suppose that — rather than writing for a small audience of other attorneys who expect you to provide great detail on something specific — you’re going to write a client alert (or a magazine article, perhaps) for a bigger audience.
Suppose you want to attract readers.
Then you need to adjust your style. Here’s why:
When you write legal matter, your audience is captive and limited. You don’t have to be interesting. But when you write copy to attract clients — copy for newsletters, alerts, articles, etc. — you must be interesting.
And that’s because you need to attract the audience. When it comes to client alerts and such, unlike briefs, nobody HAS TO read what you wrote.
