The Bluebook is a rite of passage for many law students, a minor religion for (some) law review editors, and the occasional bane of practicing lawyers. However, different institutions have their own style guides quite beyond the edicts of the Bluebook, and Jack Metzler has brought at least two of the more prominent of this collection to the public. With his publication of The Solicitor General’s Style Guide, Metzler has created the definitive style guide for Supreme Court advocates. Journalist Tony Mauro says: “Forget the Bluebook, the Solicitor General’s common-sense rules of punctuation, citation, capitalization, and italicization are now public and all lawyers should pay heed.” In addition, Metzler this year published a free edition of The Supreme Court Style Guide, the manual used by the Reporter of Decisions to prepare the Court’s decisions for publication in the United States Reports. Style guides are incredibly nerdy, and likely cater to a very small audience, which is one reason we think it is so terrific. In legal writing, style matters, and Metzler has collected two important guides to persuasion at the highest levels.
