Wayne Schiess's résumé
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Mr. Schiess directs the legal-writing program at the University of Texas School of Law and teaches legal writing, legal drafting, and plain English. He is a seminar speaker, a legal-writing tutor, and a legalese reviser. His blog was named to the 2007 ABA Journal Blawg 100, and he writes a monthly column on legal writing for Austin Lawyer magazine. He practiced law for three years at the Texas law firm of Baker Botts, and in 1992 joined the faculty at Texas.
Books
Preparing Legal Documents Nonlawyers Can Read and Understand (ABA 2008).
The Legal Memo: A Basic Guide (Kendall Hunt 2008)
Better Legal Writing (Wm. S. Hein & Co. 2005).
Writing for the Legal Audience (Carolina Academic Press 2003).
Selected articles
Legal Writing Is Not What It Should Be, 37 Southern U. Law Review 1 (2010).
Advice for Drafting a New NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, 11 Texas Review of Entertainment and Sports Law 205 (2010).
The Best of Wayne Schiess, 12 Scribes Journal of Legal Writing 123 (2008-2009).
The Art of Consumer Drafting, 11 Scribes Journal of Legal Writing 1 (2007).
What Plain English Really Is, 9 Scribes Journal of Legal Writing 43 (2004).
Ethical Legal Writing, 21 Review of Litigation 527 (2002).
The Five Principles of Legal Writing, 49 Practicing Lawyer 11 (June 2003).
Online seminars hosted at CLEonline.com
Legal Writing: Effective Correspondence in Letters and Email
Legal Writing: Ethics in Court Papers
Legal Writing: Plain English Myths and Misconceptions
Legal Writing: Some Fine Points of Legal Drafting
Plain-English revising work
Texas Pattern Jury Charges Plain-Language Task Force (jury instructions)
Washington Mutual Bank (home-loan documents)
Jim Walter Homes (home-construction documents)
CLE seminars
Social Security Admin. Office of General Counsel--Dallas, Denver, Seattle, New York
Fulbright & Jaworski
Andrews & Kurth
Texas Office of the Attorney General
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
University of Texas System Office of General Counsel
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Education
J.D., Cornell Law School
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What I believe:
Lawyers should use their big vocabularies for reading, not writing.
