welcome

Scribes was founded in 1953 to honor legal writers and encourage a “clear, succinct, and forceful style in legal writing.” We seek to promote better writing throughout the legal community — in courthouses, law offices, publishing houses, and law schools. And we hope to spread the growing scorn for legal writing that is archaic, turgid, obscure, and needlessly dull.
 
Scribes gives three annual writing awards; publishes a quarterly newsletter, The Scrivener; and publishes a unique and highly regarded journal, The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing. To learn more about these activities, use the links at the top.
 
In addition, Scribes sponsors occasional legal-writing programs. In recent years, we have cosponsored programs at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association and with the New York City Bar’s Legal History Committee; sponsored a program on jury instructions at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools; and sponsored writing seminars for students at Stetson University College of Law, South Texas College of Law, the University of Houston Law Center, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Saint Louis University Law School, and Chicago-Kent College of Law. 
 
Finally, for anyone who would like to join Scribes, there’s a link to our application form under the “Membership” link at the top of this page. Please note that we also have a category of institutional membership for law schools and appellate courts; please contact Executive Director Norman E. Plate for additional information. For more about our membership categories, please click the “Constitution and Bylaws” link above and check the bylaws under article 1, section 1(a).
 

events

Scribes to Co-host Conference in
May 2012

 
Scribes will co-host Clarity's fifth international conference to be held in 2012 from May 21-23 at the National Press Club, a unique venue in Washington DC.   

Scribes will co-host Clarity's conference with the Center for Plain Language.

The Dinner -- a national event
The conference dinner will be on the evening of May 22 at the National Press Club at 7 pm with a reception at 6 pm. In addition to the dinner speaker, the Center for Plain Language will present its annual ClearMark awards during the dinner. The ClearMark Awards -- now in their third year -- celebrate some of the best documents in the United States, and poke some gentle fun at some of the worst.

Conference Focus
The conference will focus on learning from, and encouraging, activity responding to the US Plain Writing Act. You can read about the Act here.

Timing and dates
The conference will be held as follows:

  • welcome reception on the evening of Monday May 21;
  • conference sessions, all day Tuesday May 22;
  • ClearMark Awards dinner on the evening of Tuesday May 22; and
  • conference session, all day Wednesday May 23. 

 Hotel
We have arranged discounted rooms at The Capital Hilton Hotel. The hotel is just:

  • 2 blocks from the White House; and
  • 5 or so blocks from the conference venue, the National Press Club.

To get the hotel discount, you need:

  • to reserve a room by April 20
  • to provide the group name = Clarity Conference
  • to provide the group code = NPS

You can do that:

Early bird discount -- conference fee
The conference fees (in US$) are:

  • for government employees and members of Clarity, the Center, or Scribes, $450, but if you book before March 1, the fee is only $400; and
  • for others, $500, but if you book before March 1, the fee is only $450
Register online for the conference 
You can register online for the conference here.

Conference sponsorships  
To find out about conference sponsorship opportunities, please e-mail Executive Director Norm Plate at platen@cooley.edu 
 

 2012 Scribes Annual Luncheon
August 3, 2012

The 2012 Scribes Annual Luncheon will be held on August 3 in Chicago at the Union League Club of Chicago.  Lunch will be held at noon on the 5th floor of the Crystal Room.  Please check back with us as more information becomes available.

2011 Scribes Annual Luncheon
August 6, 2011

The 2011 Scribes Annual Luncheon was held on August 6 in Toronto, Ontario.  The Scribes Book Award and the Scribes Brief-Writing Award were presented.  You can view the pictures here.

news

An article by Adam Liptak in
The New York Times (May 6)
mentioned Scribes board member Bryan Garner's interviews of Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg published in Volume 13 of The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, which included interviews of eight Supreme Court Justices.  Click here to read The New York Times article.  Click here to read the interviews in Volume 13 of The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing.   

 
 
Scribes member and former Scribes President, Gary Spivey,

wrote the cover-page article of the March/April issue of the New York State Bar Association Journal. "Mr. Gerhart and
Scribes, The American Society of Legal Writers" is about Eugene C. Gerhart, a former editor of the NYSBA Journal and a charter Scribes member, and other prominent New Yorkers who have been and continue to be involved in Scribes.  Click here to read the article.

 
Volume 13 of The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing

Because the new volume of the Scribes Journal is unique and deserves wide circulation, we are posting a PDF on our website. Click on the “Publications” tab (above) and you’ll find it — transcripts of Bryan Garner’s interviews with United States Supreme Court Justices. The interviews have received wide publicity, including this front-page article in The New York Times and these postings on The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes, The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, and Legal Skills Prof Blog (here and here).

2011-2012 Scribes Law-Review Award Competition

Scribes is pleased to announce the winner of the 2011-2012 Law-Review Award, Michael Vincent from the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University. His article, Computer-Managed Perpetual Trusts, was published in the Summer 2011 volume of the Jurimetrics Journal. Mr. Vincent accepted his award at the 2012 National Conference of Law Reviews on March 29 at the Roger Williams Law School in Bristol, Rhode Island. To read Mr. Vincent's article, please click here. 

2011-2012 Scribes Brief-Writing-Award Competition
Scribes is pleased to announce its 2011-2012 Brief-Writing-Award Competition. The competition began in 1996 to help identify and celebrate excellent student-written briefs. The competition covers the current school year -- September 2011 to May 2012. The winning author or authors will be recognized at the 2012 Scribes Annual Meeting, which will be held during the American Bar Association's Annual Meeting in Chicago on August 3, 2012. Plaques will be awarded to the authors and their school. Submissions are due by April 16, 2012. For information on how to submit a brief, please click here.

2011-2012 Scribes Annual Book Award
Scribes is pleased to announce its 2011-2012 Annual Book Award. The award will be presented at the Scribes Annual Meeting, held during the Amercian Bar Association Meeting in Chicago, on August 3, 2012. For information on how to submit a book, please click here. For the list of Committee members to whom you need to send copies of a submitted book, please click here. The deadline to submit books is April 30, 2012.