Law professor shares what makes the perfect legal brief

Nadine Tan, a professor at Loyola Law School who teaches legal research and writing, believes that clarity and concision are the foundation of effective legal writing.

"The answer, and what I always tell my students, is being clear and concise is our ultimate goal," says Tan. "And no matter what kind of writing they're doing, whether it's a persuasive brief, a memo to their supervisor, an email to a client, we're always going after clarity and concision."

While maintaining these fundamentals, Tan emphasizes that legal writing also has room for creativity and personal style. "There is a magic quality to good writing, but it can look like so many different things, which I think is part of the fun of being a lawyer and being a legal writer," she explains. "There's so many ways that you can frame an argument, that you can frame your interpretation of a case, and that's where being a creative lawyer will help you stand out."

However, she cautions that creativity should never overshadow structure: "Of course you can't ignore the foundational aspects of clear, concise writing that follows the IRAC (issue, rule, application, solution) structure."

On the topic of artificial intelligence in legal writing, Tan takes a pragmatic approach. "Generative AI is a tool just like Westlaw and Lexis, and even Google, is a tool. You have to know how to use it, what it's good for, what it's not so good for and it's never a be-all solution to the problem that you're working on."

She believes law students must learn to navigate AI technologies responsibly: "It's definitely something that law students and future attorneys need to be taught and have experience and exposure to because it's not something that we can avoid. It's just a matter of whether you are able to use it effectively and ethically."

For Tan, legal writing is a lifelong journey. "I love that it is a skill that we learn, or we teach, in law school, but we never really master it even after decades of experience."

This story is an excerpt from an interview the Daily Journal conducted with Nadine Tan discussing her tenure as president of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association. Check out the interview and more great Daily Journal content with your free subscription. Not signed up? Head here.