The Art of Clear Legal Writing: Advanced Tools for Structuring Arguments and Drafting Contracts Without Ambiguity

Robin Boyle-Laisure | St. John’s University School of Law

Robin Boyle-Laisure is Professor of Legal Writing at St. John’s University School of Law, Queens, NY, since 1994. She teaches first-year legal research and writing and upper-level contract drafting and scholarly writing. She is the Immediate Past Editor in Chief of Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing. She is the co-author of Becoming a Legal Writer (Carolina Academic Press, 2d ed. 2025); Persuasive Advocacy in Action (Carolina Academic Press 2025); and author of Teaching Contract Drafting (Edward Elgar 2023). Prior to entering academia full-time, she was a bankruptcy associate at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, a law clerk for a bankruptcy judge, and was a corporate associate at (the former firm of) Dewey Ballantine. She and her husband, Paul Skip Laisure, a criminal defense attorney, live on Long Island.

Heather Gram | Wake Forest School of Law

Heather Gram is a Teaching Professor at the Wake Forest School of Law. She teaches Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research (LAWR) I & II, Appellate Advocacy, Entertainment Drafting, and Entertainment Law. Prior to entering academia, Heather was the Associate General Counsel/Vice-President of Legal & Business Affairs at Harpo Productions in Chicago. As the primary counsel for The Oprah Winfrey Show and other Harpo programming, she specialized in transactional drafting and the legal issues surrounding television production, online content, sweepstakes/marketing law, and defamation. She and her husband, Joe, a construction attorney, have four children and a black lab named Teddy.

I. Alternative structures for the question presented | 2:00pm – 2:30pm

II. Alternative structures for the counterargument | 2:30pm – 3:00pm

Break | 3:00pm – 3:10pm

III. Clarity in brief writing | 3:10pm – 3:30pm

IV. Writing devices, such as the use of metaphor | 3:30pm – 3:50pm

V. Clarity in drafting contract provisions | 3:50pm – 4:10pm