Write.law, Las Vegas, NV (2026)

05/29/2026

Legal tech used to be something most lawyers could safely ignore. 👋

You needed an email. You needed PDFs. You needed to survive the firm’s document-management system. But the machinery underneath? That could mostly stay with IT. 🖥️

AI now touches legal research, contract review, client intake, litigation strategy, legal writing, court filings, and more. Lawyers do not need to become engineers, but they do need a working vocabulary. 📑

Here are the AI concepts every lawyer should know by now:

1️⃣ Artificial intelligence is the broad category. It covers tools that do tasks we associate with human intelligence.

2️⃣ When people talk about “using AI,” they usually mean they are using a model. A model is the trained system behind the tool.

3️⃣ A large language model, or LLM, is the kind of model behind tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.

4️⃣ Training data is the material used to build the model. It helps the model learn language, concepts, relationships, patterns, and forms.

5️⃣ Context is the material available to the model in the current task: your prompt, pasted text, uploaded documents, or chat history.

6️⃣ Models process text in pieces called tokens. A token may be a word, part of a word, punctuation, or another chunk of text.

7️⃣ A prompt is the instruction you give the tool.

8️⃣ Hallucination is when AI produces false information as if it were true.

9️⃣ A RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) system first retrieves relevant information from a set of documents or database. Then the model uses that retrieved material to generate an answer.

🔟 An AI agent is a system that can take steps toward a goal. That may mean searching files, drafting a response, updating a spreadsheet, creating a task, checking a database, or using other tools.

Lawyers do not need to know every technical layer. But they do need to understand the concepts that shape the risk. ☑️

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05/28/2026

There is no magic phrase that proves AI wrote a draft. Still, it leaves tracks. 🔍

Usually not in one sentence. But a draft starts sounding oddly smooth, generic, and repetitive. The writing is solid and clear, but the tone feels the same, over and over. ☝️

That is the skill worth building: learning how AI writing tends to feel on the page, so you can spot it in someone else’s work, or scrub it out of your own. 📑

➡️ The “not X, but Y” habit
➡️ The sentence rhythm never changes
➡️ The draft keeps summarizing instead of saying anything
➡️ The em dash starts doing too much work
➡️ The writing has grammar but no fingerprints
➡️ The voice shifts inside the same document

Once you start seeing those patterns, you’ll catch them everywhere. And once you catch them, you can cut them.

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05/23/2026

Good narrators aren’t just for novels. Legal readers need guidance, too. ✍️

Narration in legal writing means thinking carefully about the details your reader receives and then deciding where they may need context, signposting, explanation, or a little extra orientation. 📝

Think of it as stepping in as the reader’s guide. You are not just listing facts. You are helping the reader understand how those facts fit together, why they matter, and where the discussion is going.

Here are a few ways to use narration in your writing:

➡️ Identify gaps, confusing facts, or important details that may need added context.

➡️ Orient the reader in time, especially when dates, events, or procedural history become complicated.

➡️ Add brief explanations, definitions, or lay descriptions when they will make the facts easier to understand.

➡️ Highlight important factual points or explain why those facts will matter later.

Strong narration shapes the reader’s understanding. It helps the facts flow, keeps the reader oriented, and makes your argument easier to follow. ☑️

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05/20/2026

A decade ago, using contractions in legal writing would have raised eyebrows among most readers. These days, you’ll find some of the world’s top lawyers using them. ✍️

But one question remains: should legal writers jump on every new writing trend the moment it emerges?

Some would say yes, but there’s a catch: if your writing becomes too informal, some readers might judge you for it. 🚫

So how should you balance the need to write in a way that feels familiar and modern while avoiding new trends that some readers hate?

1️⃣ Get comfortable with popular usage and style guides. Books like the Chicago Manual of Style give you a baseline of what the norm is in the legal field.

2️⃣ If you want to adopt new approaches over time, wait until acceptance is broad enough that you are unlikely to alienate legal audiences.

3️⃣ Be sure that your team, your supervisors (if relevant), and anyone else with an interest in the document are okay with your approach.

Remember, you should always incorporate trends with care and consider whether your audience will be receptive.

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05/15/2026

One of the easiest ways to get weak work from AI is to let it take the first swing. 🚫

A lawyer opens a blank document, types a broad prompt, and seconds later gets a tidy draft. Often it is a trade: less effort at the front end in exchange for less control over the work.

A first draft does more than fill space. It chooses the frame. It decides what leads, what gets buried, what sounds settled, and which questions never appear. ☑️

Once that frame is on the screen, most people start editing inside it. They are no longer deciding from scratch what matters. They are responding to the machine’s version of what matters.

That is a problem in legal work, where the hard part is rarely producing sentences. The hard part is ranking issues, handling nuance, choosing the right tone, and knowing what deserves emphasis. 📑

The danger is not that AI always writes badly. Often it writes well enough to be persuasive at the wrong level. Fast, polished answers are easy to trust. That is exactly why lawyers should be careful with them. 🚨

Doing some work first fixes part of the problem. It forces a short pause before the machine starts generating text. That pause is useful.

05/13/2026

Most writing problems in briefs are small. 📄

The sentence is almost right, so nobody stops to fix it. You read past it because you know what you meant. Still, it lands a little off. ❌

This checklist covers a few of the usual offenders, along with a handful of others that show up in good legal writing more often than they should.

☑️ Use That When the Clause Is Necessary

In American legal prose, that usually introduces a clause the sentence needs. Which usually introduces extra information.

☑️ Treat Whom as Optional More Often Than You Think

The old rule still works. Who is for subjects. Whom is for objects. That said, many sentences improve when you drop whom altogether.

☑️ Save If for Conditions and Whether for Questions

This one is easy once you hear the difference. Courts decide questions. Briefs should sound like they know when a sentence poses one.

☑️ Keep Affect and Effect in Their Usual Jobs

Affect is the verb, and effect is the noun. Yes, effect can also be a verb, as in effect a settlement. But that phrasing can be improved.

☑️ Put Only Next to the Word It Limits

A misplaced only can change the meaning of a sentence without drawing much attention to itself.

These mistakes survive because they hide in ordinary sentences. The easiest fix is to look for them separately. 🔍

05/09/2026

Many legal writers don’t consider how they want to introduce and build up their story’s characters. 🎭

You have many options in describing your client and everyone else involved in the case. And those perceptions matter. ☝️

Let’s dive into the tools that will help you develop the heroes, villains, and background players in your case.

1️⃣ Tell Your Story Using the Characters’ Perspective

We follow along better when facts relate to someone rather than something. So aim to deliver the key facts from a character’s perspective.

2️⃣ Insert Reputation Facts Judiciously

Add details that make the key characters look better or worse. In other words, include reputational facts.

3️⃣ Develop Characters’ Motivations

There’s usually motivational context that will clarify what led the characters to act the way they did.

4️⃣ Refer to Outside Events, Experiences, and Interactions

Another way to develop your characters is by sharing what they’ve experienced. We get to know characters by what happens to them.

05/06/2026

How the text appears on your reader’s page or screen matters. 🖥️

Document design, white space, and typography can all reflect on your credibility. These are the silent persuaders:

➡️ Choosing the Right Fonts

When it comes to fonts, the choices you make can impact both readability and the professional appearance of your document. There’s a reason some fonts are called “book-friendly.”

➡️ Styling and Emphasizing Text

Use smart quotes and apostrophes, also known as curly quotes. Unlike straight quotes and apostrophes, they have a curved shape that enhances your text’s professional look.

➡️ Punctuation and Text Spacing

Consider joining the one-space crew if you aren’t a member already. In our digital age, there’s no need to use two spaces after a period. Modern fonts provide sufficient space after a period.

➡️ Mastering White Space

Bullet points and numbered lists can create valuable white space, breaking up long, complex passages into more manageable chunks.

➡️ Layout and Alignment

Left-aligned text is typically the easiest to read, as it maintains a consistent starting point for each line. Ensure you have ample margins.

Whatever design choices you make, be consistent. Random changes in font, style, or layout will be distracting. 📑

05/01/2026

Sullivan & Cromwell apologized to a federal judge after a filing included AI-generated inaccuracies ❌. The firm said its internal AI policies were not followed, and the review process failed to catch the errors.

That is the problem in one sentence: AI errors usually do not slip through because the draft looked ridiculous. They slip through because the draft looked plausible. ☝️

But don’t panic. Learn a cleaner, safer workflow:

1️⃣ Know What a Hallucination Looks Like

Most lawyers think of hallucinations as made-up cases. Sometimes that is the problem. But more often, the problem is smaller and sneakier.

2️⃣ Do Not Ask AI to Find Your Law

This is the first rule: do not ask a general AI tool to find authorities for your brief, build your cite string, or add supporting case law.

3️⃣ Build a Source Packet Before You Draft

This one move fixes a lot. Before you ask AI for help, assemble the authorities and record materials you actually want it to use.

4️⃣ Give AI Narrower Jobs

Hallucinations get worse when the task is broad. Prompts like “find cases for this argument” invite confident guessing. Tighter prompts are safer.

5️⃣ Never Let AI Hide a Missing Cite

Many lawyers “check citations” in a way that’s too shallow. When reviewing an AI-assisted draft, do it proposition by proposition.

6️⃣ Put One Human in Charge of the Final Authority Check

The ABA’s formal guidance on generative AI makes the basic point clear: the old duties still apply. Competence, confidentiality, and supervision do not disappear because AI helped draft the document.

04/27/2026

Universal Music and Concord sued retailer Quince, alleging that the company used copyrighted songs 🚫 across its own social posts and influencer campaigns.

However the case comes out, the filing is worth studying 📑. It shows how to take a very modern fact pattern and turn it into a straight-line story.

Let’s see what the music companies’ lawyers can teach us about sharp legal writing:

➡️ Choose a Reusable Label for the Core Conduct

When a case revolves around the same conduct over and over, give that conduct a name early. Then keep using it.

➡️ Let Other Sources Sell the Theme

When your big point is broad, outside sources often carry it better than your own adjectives.

➡️ Distill the Theory Before Readers Have to Untangle It

Messy digital fact patterns can bury readers. The fix is simple: give them the theory first, then break it into parts.

➡️ Use the Other Side’s Own Documents to Show Control

Many lawyers say the defendant “controlled” the conduct. Better lawyers quote the documents showing control.

➡️ Build Willfulness With Sequence, Then Land Short

Mental state is usually proved by chronology, not adjectives. The complaint earns its willfulness allegations by laying out the sequence.

➡️ Pick Examples That Prove More Than One Point

The best examples do more than technically support the claim. They stick. This complaint gives readers a few examples like that.

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