Hours

Hirers of ghostwriters divide on wanting the best critical document or avoiding a practice-disrupting routine document. The wish pertaining decides the hours a project needs. Routine projects carry routine expectations, an unimportant demurrer going for five or six hours.

On a critical motion or appeal, the attorney would like victory assured to a practical certainty, a goal approachable but time-consuming to attain because the ghostwriter must pursue deeper understanding of the issues. He must not only know the dispositive holdings but understand why they must hold, understandings crucial to persuading the judge, rather than over-powering the opposition. Only if you persuade the judge can you be sure of prevailing.

The relationship is not linear between the ghostwriter's expertise and the hours needed to draft a critical document. With the writer's quickening apprehension of case law, he becomes more efficient over a five to ten year period. After that the writer continues to learn how to improve documents, so his best work takes longer.

Ghostwriting on Contingency

If your ghostwriter is sure of his skill and your case's merit, shouldn't he accept payment on contingency? Whether contingency payment is a good idea for you as customer depends on how much control over the product you want to cede to your writer. If you insist on exercising your right of control over content and style, then you cannot reasonably expect your ghostwriter to accept a contingency over which you exercise the greater control. If you are a lawyer, you will not want to give up your right of control, although if you made a wise choice for ghostwriter, you ought to follow his recommendations in most instances.

On the other hand, everyone responds to incentives. A professional may think he does his best regardless of the specific incentives, but this is illusion or self-deception. Making a minor part of the fee contingent provides an incentive for best performance, without impairing the ghostwriter's disinterest in the content.

What part of the fee do we perceive as significant but minor? From social practices that involve ascertaining a small but significant part — from tithing to tipping — treating 15% + - 5% of the fee as contingent should have a salutary effect.

Finding a persuasive ghostwriter

This blog helps attorneys select persuasive ghostwriters. Professional persuaders themselves, many attorneys assume they ably appraise written effectiveness. The authoritative critiques of common brief-writing practices should give pause, as when lawyers flout recommendations favoring concision by filing lengthy, even padded briefs, which legal-writing experts claim judges are indisposed to read, understand, or believe. Many attorneys apply superfluous legal jargon; whereas, the experts cite scientific studies showing plain English enjoys greater judicial regard. The attorneys who draft wordy, jargon-laden briefs try to persuade. If the experts reject some of their long-cherished practices, the lawyers plainly fail to distinguish persuasive from unpersuasive if the experts are right.

A contestable condition the experts' correctness, unlike law, where authoritativeness constructs rightness. Most attorneys have heard the authorities' advice and either reject it as erroneous or disregard it as insignificant. Although the occasional scientific study is performed, expert opinion is mostly folklore, no less than practitioners’ habitual practices and typical beliefs. Here enters this blog, premised on criticizing traditional practices, without blind counter-reliance. Disputed Issues contests traditionalist belief without receiving modernity's truth; it explores why lawyers ignore good writing advice, whether perceptual illusion or cognitive confusion beguiles. Analyzing error improves judgment.