Bryan A. Garner

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Bryan A. Garner (born November 17, 1958, in Lubbock, Texas) is a U.S. lawyer, lexicographer, a teacher who has written several books about English usage and style, and the founder of LawProse, Inc., a business dedicated to changing the way lawyers communicate. He is the author of Garner's Modern American Usage and editor in chief of all current editions of Black's Law Dictionary. He is also an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist Law School.


Contents

[edit] Biography

Garner's passion for language showed first in Canyon High School, in the Panhandle of Texas, and intensified in college to such a degree that he began working on Shakespearean usage under the guidance of two early mentors, Professor John W. Velz and Professor Thomas Cable, both of the University of Texas. For his senior thesis, entitled "Shakespeare's Latinate Diction," Cable proclaimed that the University should award him a Ph.D. instead of a B.A.--that his senior thesis was as good as any Ph.D. dissertation he'd seen in the previous 25 years. Garner published many excerpts from this thesis, mostly notably "Shakespeare's Latinate Neologisms," and "Latin-Saxon Hybrids in Shakespeare and the Bible."[1] These essays have been not only published but anthologized in various sources. His other adviser, the Shakespearean Velz, published an essay in which he proclaimed: "One student like Garner is enough to make a career worthwhile." [2][3][4][5]

[edit] Garner's Work

[edit] Law and Legal Style

At the University of Texas Law School in 1981, Garner began noticing odd usages in the lawbooks--many of them dating back to Shakespeare--and he decided to include them in his first real book, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. That book was published by Oxford University Press in 1985. In 1991, Garner founded LawProse, Inc., a Dallas company that provides seminars on writing for lawyers and judges throughout the United States. The company offers seminars in Advanced Legal Writing & Editing, Advanced Legal Drafting, The Winning Brief, and Advanced Judicial Writing. Like much of Garners work, the seminars aim to increase of the clarity of legal and judicial writing.

On July 8, 2001, The New York Times ran a front-page Sunday article about a minor controversy that has emerged as a result of Garner's teachings.[6] In various books and articles,.[7][8][9][10][11] as well as in his lectures, Garner has agitated to reform the way bibliographic references are interlarded in the midst of textual analysis. He argues for putting citations in footnotes while noting in the text the important authorities. He opposes references such as 457 U.S. 423, 432, 102 S.Ct. 2515, 2521, 89 L.Ed.2d 744, 747 as interruptions in the middle of a line. But in judges' opinions and in lawyers' briefs, such interruptions are the norm. Some courts and advocates around the country have begun adopting Garner's recommended style of footnoted citations, and a surprising degree of internal strife has resulted within the organizations where the change is taking place. For example, one appellate judge in Louisiana refused to join in a colleague's opinions written in the new format.[12] Garner says that one of the main reasons for the reform is to make legal writing more understandable to readers without a legal education. Yet he has attracted vehement opposition, most notably from Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.[13]

Undoubtedly the most obscure contribution that Garner has made to American law is in the field of procedural rules. In 1992, he revised all amendments to the various sets of Federal Rules - Civil, Appellate, Evidence, Bankruptcy, and Criminal - by the United States Judicial Conference. In the early 1990s, he restyled the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which were adopted by the Judicial Conference, adopted by the United States Supreme Court, and enacted by Congress. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were restyled in 1993-1994 and adopted on December 1, 2007. Garner has revised the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, the California Rules of Appellate Procedure, the California Judicial Council Rules, the Local Rules of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, and most recently the Rules on Judicial-Conduct and Disability Proceedings (for federal courts).

Since 2006, Garner has interspersed in his lectures numerous video clips from the many dozens of judges he has interviewed on the art of writing and on advocacy. In 2006-2007, he interviewed eight of the nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court. These interviews are accessible in full at www.lawprose.org. In addition, Garner has interviewed circuit judges on every federal circuit in the country. The purpose of these interviews, he has reported, is to create an archive of what American judges in the early part of the 21st century believe about effective writing and advocacy.

[edit] English Grammar and Usage

Garner is also a grammarian and has written books on general english usage, including Garner's Modern American Usage. When the University of Chicago Press undertook the 15th edition of the influential Chicago Manual of Style, Garner contributed a chapter on grammar and usage. At 95 pages, that section of the book (Chapter 5) is an accessible, readable, explanation of the principles of traditional grammar.

[edit] Selected Bibliography

[edit] Books

  • Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges -- Co-authored with Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States -- Thomson West
  • Garner's Modern American Usage -- Oxford University Press
  • The Elements of Legal Style -- Oxford University Press
  • Legal Writing in Plain English -- University of Chicago Press
  • A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 2d ed. -- Oxford University Press
  • The Winning Brief -- Oxford University Press
  • The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style -- West Group
  • Black's Law Dictionary unabridged 8th ed. -- West Group
  • Securities Disclosure in Plain English -- CCH
  • Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Court Rules -- Administrative Office of the US Courts
  • The Rules of Golf in Plain English -- University Of Chicago Press
  • A Handbook of Basic Law Terms -- West Group
  • A Handbook of Business Law Terms -- West Group
  • A Handbook of Criminal Law Terms -- West Group

[edit] Articles

  • A Writing Group Is a Great Way to Help Your Prose, Student Lawyer, Jan. 2006, pp. 10–11.
  • A Recap of 2005 in Grammar, Usage & Writing, in 2006 Green Bag Almanac 19–28.
  • How Well Does He Write? John Roberts Pens Lucid, Adeptly Punctuated Opinions — with Occasional Congestion, The Legal Times, 12 Sept. 2005, p. 62.
  • Follow These 10 Writing Tips to Succeed at Your Law Firm, Student Lawyer, Mar. 2005, pp. 12–13.
  • The Art of Boiling Down: James Fitzjames Stephens as Drafter and Lexicographer, Green Bag, Autumn 2005, pp. 27–35.
  • Judges on Effective Writing: The Importance of Plain Language, Michigan Bar Journal, Mar. 1994, pp. 326–27, repr. in Michigan Bar Journal, Feb. 2005, pp. 44–45.
  • The Year 2004 in Grammar, Usage & Writing, Green Bag, Winter 2005, pp. 201–06.
  • The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Wright, Texas Law Review, vol. 76, pp. 1587–1605 (1998). (Reprinted and updated in Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, vol. 7, pp. 1–25 (2000)).
  • Ten Questions for Bryan Garner, The Scrivener, Fall 1996, pp. 1, 6–7.
  • Remembering Judge Thomas Gibbs Gee, Review of Litigation, vol. 15, pp. 169–75 (1996).
  • The Uncivil Lawyer: A Scourge at the Bar (with Judge Thomas Gibbs Gee), Review of Litigation, vol. 15, pp. 177–201 (1996).
  • Briefs to the Supreme Court, in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States 91 (1992).
  • The Style of Supreme Court Opinions, in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States 607–11 (1992).
  • A Note on the Ambiguity of Macbeth's “Intrenchant,” American Notes & Queries, vol. 20, nos. 3 & 4, pp. 39–43 (Nov./Dec. 1981), repr. in American Notes & Queries, vol. 21, nos. 3 & 4, pp. 36–40 (Nov./Dec. 1982).

[edit] Articles about Garner

  • David Foster Wallace, Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage, Harper's Magazine, April 2001, pp. 39-58; repr. more fully in Wallace's book Consider the Lobster (2005).
  • Editor's Column: Bryan Garner Counsels Appellate Lawyers and Judges on Effective Legal Writing (interview by Dorothy Easner), The Record, Winter 2005, pp. 20–22.
  • Johnston, Bar Leader, July-Aug. 1991, pp. 24–25, 27.
  • Brett Campbell, Songs in the Key of Law, Barrister, 22 Sept. 1989, pp. 14ff.
  • Horne, The American Lawyer, Dec. 1988, p. 102.
  • High Profiles, Dallas Morning News, 16 Dec. 1987, p. H1.
  • Laura Mansnerus, Lawyer Talk? You Could Look It Up, The New York Times, 11 Dec. 1987, at B8.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  • Listen to a two-hour interview [1] with Garner on KERA 90.1. You can download the mp3 podcast of the interview here: Hour 1 and Hour 2.

[edit] References

  1. ^ John W. Velz, Looking Back at Some Turns in the Road, in Burnt Orange Britannia (Wm. Roger Louis ed., 2005), at 390, 400.
  2. ^ Carlton Stowers, Courtly Language, Dallas Observer, 19-25 July 2001, pp. 20–21.
  3. ^ Nancy Kruh, Bryan Garner: The Lawyer and Lexicographer Is a Man of His Words, Dallas Morning News, 9 May 1999, High Profile §, pp. E1, 4–5.
  4. ^ Paul Kix, The English Teacher, D Magazine, Nov. 2007, at 41-44.
  5. ^ Dave Moore, On a Language Quest, Dallas Business Journal, Oct. 5-11, 2007, at 37, 42-43.
  6. ^ William Glaberson, Legal Citations1 on Trial in Innovation v. Tradition, The New York Times, 8 July 2001, pp. 1, 16.
  7. ^ Bryan A. Garner, Footnoted Citations Can Make Memos and Briefs Easier to Comprehend, Student Lawyer, Sept. 2003, pp. 11–12.
  8. ^ Bryan A. Garner, The Winning Brief (2d ed. 2004), at 139-158.
  9. ^ Bryan A. Garner, Legal Writing in Plain English (2001), at 77-83.
  10. ^ Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (2d ed. 1995), at 156.
  11. ^ Bryan A. Garner, The Elements of Legal Style (2d. ed. 2002), at 91-92.
  12. ^ William Glaberson, Legal Citations1 on Trial in Innovation v. Tradition, The New York Times, 8 July 2001, pp. 1, 16.
  13. ^ Richard A. Posner, Against Footnotes, 38 Court Rev. 24 (Summer 2001)(answering Garner, Clearing the Coverbs from Judicial Opinions, 38 Court Rev. 4 (Summer 2001)).