Lance Long

Professor Lance Long gave a presentation entitled “Are Bad Writers Bad Lawyers?” at the Western Regional Legal Writing Conference at the University of Oregon on August 10, 2012.  Professor Long’s presentation highlighted  his latest research suggesting that  lawyers who commit careless errors (poor grammar, typos, and other syntactic errors) in legal briefs and memoranda submitted to a court are more than twice as likely to be sanctioned by a bar for ethical misconduct.  Professor Long’s research does not suggest a causal relationship, but hypothesizes that carelessness in writing may be indicative of carelessness in other areas of legal practice.