Bryan Andrew Garner (born November 17, 1958) is an American legal scholar and

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...

. He has written more than two dozen books about English

usage The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a languag ...

and

style Style, or styles may refer to: Film and television * ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal * ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film * ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film * '' ...

such as ''Garner's Modern English Usage'' for a general audience, and others for legal professionals. Garner also wrote two books with Justice

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual an ...

: ''Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges'' (2008) and ''Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts'' (2012). He is the founder and president of LawProse Inc. Garner serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University

Dedman School of Law SMU Dedman School of Law, commonly referred to as SMU Law School or Dedman School of Law, is a law school located in Dallas, Texas. Jason P. Nance serves as its current dean. Founded in February 1925, the school located is on the Southern Meth ...

. He is also a lecturer at his alma mater, the

University of Texas School of Law The University of Texas School of Law (Texas Law) is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Texas at Austin, a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas. According to Texas Law’s American Bar ...

. He is the founder and chair of the board for the American Friends of Dr. Johnson's House, a nonprofit organization supporting the house museum in London that was the former home of

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

, the author of the first authoritative ''Dictionary of the English Language''.

Early life and education

Garner was born on November 17, 1958, in

Lubbock, Texas Lubbock ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Lubbock County. With a population of 272,086 in 2024, Lubbock is the 10th-most populous city in Texas and the 84th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the ...

, and raised in

Canyon, Texas Canyon is a city in and the county seat of Randall County, Texas, United States. The population was 14,836 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is part of the Amarillo, Texas, Amarillo metropolitan area, metropolitan statistical area ...

. He attended the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

, where he published excerpts from his senior thesis, notably "Shakespeare's Latinate Neologisms" and "Latin-Saxon Hybrids in Shakespeare and the Bible". After receiving his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree, Garner entered the

, where he served as an associate editor of the '' Texas Law Review''.

Career

After receiving his

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree in 1984, he clerked for Judge Thomas M. Reavley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit before he joined the Dallas firm of Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal. He then returned to the University of Texas School of Law and was named director of the Texas/Oxford Center for Legal Lexicography. In 1990, he left the university to found LawProse Inc., which provides seminars on clear writing, briefing and editing for lawyers and judges. Garner has taught at the

, the

UC Berkeley School of Law The University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Berkeley Law) is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of California, Berkeley. The school was commonly referred to as "Boalt Hall" for many years, although it was ...

, Texas Tech University School of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law and Texas A&M University School of Law. He has been awarded three honorary doctorates from Stetson, La Verne, and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He serves on the Board of Advisers of '' The Green Bag''.

Author

As a student at the University of Texas School of Law in 1981, Garner began noticing odd usages in lawbooks, many of them dating back to

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

. They became the source material for his first book, ''A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage'' (1987). Since 1990, his work has focused on teaching the legal profession clear writing techniques. In books, articles, and lectures, Garner has tried to reform the way bibliographic references are " interlarded" (interwoven) in the midst of textual analysis. He argues for putting

citations A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

footnote In publishing, a note is a brief text in which the author comments on the subject and themes of the book and names supporting citations. In the editorial production of books and documents, typographically, a note is usually several lines of tex ...

s and notes that in-text information that is important but non-bibliographic. He opposes references such as "457 U.S. 423, 432, 102 S.Ct. 2515, 2521, 89 L.Ed.2d 744, 747" as interruptions in the middle of a line. However, such interruptions in judges' opinions and in lawyers' briefs have remained the norm. Some courts and advocates around the country have begun adopting Garner's recommended style of footnoted citations, and a degree of internal strife has resulted within some organizations. For example, one appellate judge in Louisiana refused to join in a colleague's opinions written in the new format. Garner says that one of the main reasons for the reform is to make legal writing more comprehensible to readers who lack a legal education. That has attracted opposition, most notably from Judge

Richard Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American legal scholar and retired United States circuit judge who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicag ...

of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and from his co-author, Justice

. Since 1992, Garner has contributed numerous revisions to the field of procedural rules, when he began revising all amendments to the sets of Federal Rules ( Civil,

Appellate In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

Evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the proposition is truth, true. The exact definition and role of evidence vary across different fields. In epistemology, evidence is what J ...

Bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

, and

Criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

) for the

Judicial Conference of the United States The Judicial Conference of the United States, formerly known as the Conference of Senior Circuit Judges, was created by the United States Congress in 1922 with the principal objective of framing policy guidelines for administration of judicial co ...

. Garner and Justice Scalia wrote ''Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges'' (2008). Garner maintains a legal consulting practice, focusing on issues in statutory construction and contractual interpretation.

English grammar and usage

Garner's books on English usage include ''

Garner's Modern English Usage ''Garner's Modern English Usage'' (GMEU), written by Bryan A. Garner and published by Oxford University Press, is a usage dictionary and style guide (or " prescriptive dictionary") for contemporary Modern English. It was first published in 1998 ...

''. This dictionary was the subject of

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine ...

's essay "Authority and American Usage" in '' Consider the Lobster and Other Essays'', originally published in the April 2001 issue of ''Harper's Magazine''. In 2003, Garner contributed a chapter on grammar and usage to the 15th edition of ''

The Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (''CMOS'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 18 editions (the most recent in 2024) have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publ ...

'', and later editions have retained it.

''Black's Law Dictionary''

In 1995, Garner became the editor-in-chief of ''

Black's Law Dictionary ''Black's Law Dictionary'' is the most frequently used legal dictionary in the United States. Henry Campbell Black (1860–1927) was the author of the first two editions of the dictionary. History The first edition was published in 1891 by Wes ...

''. He created a panel of international legal experts to improve the specialized vocabulary in the book. Garner and the panel rewrote and expanded the dictionary's lexicographic information.

Bibliography

Only current editions are shown. * ''

'' (5th ed. 2022) * ''Nino and Me: My Unusual Friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia'' (2017). Threshold Editions. * ''The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation'' (2016; an expanded version of his chapter in ''The'' ''Chicago Manual of Style'') * ''The Rules of Golf in Plain English'' (with Jeffrey S. Kuhn, 4th ed. 2016) * ''

'' (12th ed. 2024; abr. 10th ed. 2015; and 6th pocket ed. 2021) * ''Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Legislation'' (2015) * ''The Winning Brief: 100 Tips for Persuasive Briefing in Trial and Appellate Courts'' (3rd ed. 2014) * ''HBR Guide to Better Business Writing'' (2013) * ''Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text with Exercises'' (2nd ed. 2013) * ''Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing'' (transcript of an interview with

, 2013). RosePen Books. * ''The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style'' (3rd ed. 2013) * ''Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts'' (with Justice Antonin Scalia, 2012) * ''Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage'' (3rd ed. 2011) * ''

'', Ch. 5 "Grammar and Usage", (16th ed. 2010) * ''Ethical Communications for Lawyers: Upholding Professional Responsibility'' (2009). LawProse, Inc. * '' Garner on Language and Writing: Selected Essays and Speeches of Bryan A. Garner'' (foreword by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2009). American Bar Association. * ''The Winning Oral Argument: Enduring Principles with Supporting Comments from the Literature'' (2nd ed. 2009) * ''Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges'' (with Justice Antonin Scalia, 2008) * ''A New Miscellany-at-Law: Yet Another Diversion for Lawyers and Others'' (by Robert Megarry, Garner ed., 2005). Hart. * ''The Elements of Legal Style'' (2nd ed. 2002) * ''Guidelines for Drafting and Editing Court Rules'' (2002) * ''A Handbook of Family Law Terms'' (2001). West Group. * ''A Handbook of Criminal Law Terms'' (2000). West Group. * ''The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style'' (2000; an abridged version of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, 1st ed. 1998) * ''A Handbook of Basic Law Terms'' (1999). West Group. * ''A Handbook of Business Law Terms'' (1999). West Group. * ''Securities Disclosure in Plain English'' (1999). CCH Inc. * ''Texas, Our Texas: Remembrances of The University'' (1984). (editor)

Notes

References

External links

LawProse
* Intervie

with Garner on KERA (FM), KERA 90.1. The mp3 podcast of the interview is available at
1
an
Hour 2

Biography at the ''Texas Law Review''

"Clearing the Cobwebs on Judicial Opinion", from the Summer 2001 issue of ''Court Review'' 21
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Garner, Bryan A. Living people 1958 births People from Lubbock, Texas University of Texas at Austin alumni American lawyers American legal scholars American legal writers American lexicographers Legal educators American golf writers Plain English Writers of style guides University of Texas School of Law faculty Southern Methodist University faculty People from Canyon, Texas