Jill Barton, a professor of legal writing and director of the Legal Communication and Research Skills Program, participated in the 21st annual judicial symposium sponsored by the National Foundation for Judicial Excellence. She spoke about modern legal writing and AI, sharing that AI’s writing style improves when we improve our input. To demonstrate that, she asked Claude to rewrite a few favorite lines from “The Old Man and the Sea”—in the voice of Chief Justice Roberts, channeling his crime-noir dissent in Pennsylvania v. Dunlap.
Barton is a former appellate judicial clerk and an award-winning journalist. Her latest book, analyzing the writing style of U.S. Supreme Court justices, “The Supreme Guide to Writing,” was published by Oxford University Press in September 2024. She has also authored “So Ordered: The Writer’s Guide for Aspiring Judges, Judicial Clerks, and Interns” and coauthored “The Handbook for the New Legal Writer,” a popular law school textbook now in its third edition, that aims to demystify the process of legal writing and inspire beginning and experienced legal writers.
