This Is Writing―the Substack Site
Writing (mostly about writing (mostly about legal writing) but not entirely)
For 20 years in various jobs I have sent around emails to large groups about legal writing and related topics. Some people seemed to like those emails. I liked writing them. I’m hoping to find an easy place to share and keep sharing with those who are interested. I’m also looking to challenge myself to write about certain topics.
1. Why this?
Ah, self-publishing, the last refuge of the unpublishable and/or the editing-averse and/or the self-absorbed and/or those open to trying something new. I feel like I have been “self-published” for a long time, but it was just in the form of emails. Honestly, it felt like talking to friends, though in a late-evening, old-timey, radio-DJ kind of way for some person out on a lonesome road with one AM radio station. What would be wonderful is if I could find a way to talk with those friends from the past 20 years across lots of different jobs and contexts and then also make new friends.
2. Who should be interested?
I hope to start with those who have tolerated and even enjoyed me or my writing over the years. I want to pull together things I have been working on related to legal writing. So if you want to tune in to someone still flabbergasted by the stubborn superstitions and starchiness of most legal writing, you should be interested.
Beyond that, I have interests and challenge topics in mind. For example, I wrote a long-ish article about the changing regulation of psychedelic drugs. I’m also learning and writing about artificial intelligence and how it will change the practice of law.
So if your interests fall somewhere between fonts, fly fishing, syntax, syllogisms, psilocybin, artificial intelligence, meditation, metal guitar, and all manner of endurance races, there may be something here for you eventually. It will be mostly for lawyers, but hardly unapproachable for non-lawyers.
3. What to expect
My plan is to post every week.
