Using Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in your Legal Writing

What can a dead philosopher teach us about legal writing? If his name is Aristotle, a lot actually! The hallmark of effective legal writing is its ability to persuade. But there’s more to persuasion than making the right arguments. Most lawyers focus on the logos of legal writing while neglecting the pathos and ethos. This course will help make your legal writing more persuasive by showing you how to improve in all three categories.

Using real-life examples from briefs filed in real cases, you’ll learn practical tips and techniques to maximize pathos, ethos, and logos in your legal writing. More specifically, you’ll learn how to persuade readers to like you (pathos), trust you (ethos), and join you (logos).

Attorneys from all levels of experience who want to be more persuasive in their legal writing should attend this program. This CLE will focus on brief-writing for judges. But whether you’re writing to persuade trial or appellate judges hearing your case, senior associates or partners at your law firm, or a CEO or board of directors at your company, incorporating Aristotle’s principles of persuasion into your legal writing will help you achieve better results.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn three qualities of judges to help you persuade them using pathos
• Investigate practical ways you can make your briefs more enjoyable for judges to read while persuading them to like you and your clients
• Learn three qualities of judges to help you persuade them using ethos
• Discover practical ways you can write your briefs to inspire confidence in you as an advocate
• Learn three qualities of judges to help you persuade them using logos
• Explore practical ways you can construct and write your briefs to make them more logically compelling