Ryan McCarl, litigation attorney and author of Elegant Legal Writing, is hosting a series of online events about legal writing, argumentation, and AI.
Before co-founding Rushing McCarl LLP, McCarl taught advanced legal writing and served as an AI Law and Policy research fellow at the UCLA School of Law. He has been invited to present to audiences including the Appellate Judges Education Institute, ABA Litigation Section, and Texas Office of the Attorney General along with private law firms.
Upcoming events calendar
All events begin at noon Pacific (3 p.m. Eastern) and are held online through Zoom. Both active participants and passive listeners are welcome in the workshops. Each event is described in greater detail below.
September 17 — AI Workflows for Lawyers (Presentation)
60-minute presentation and Q&A · $199
Register for September 17 | More infoSeptember 24 — Concision and Plain Language (Workshop)
90-minute workshop · $145 · 20-participant cap
Register for September 24 | More infoOctober 1 — Strong Sentences (Workshop)
90-minute workshop · $145 · 20-participant cap
Register for October 1 | More infoOctober 8 — Concision and Plain Language (Workshop)
90-minute workshop · $145 · 20-participant cap
Register for October 8 | More info
Workshops focus mainly on live writing exercises along with teaching explanations and Q&A. They are participatory — though passive attendance with microphone and camera off is fine — and limited to small groups to allow real-time feedback. Presentations use a live lecture-and-demonstration format along with a Zoom-chat-based Q&A.
Legal-Writing Workshop: Concision and Plain Language
Dates: Thursday, 10/8/26; Thursday, 9/24/26
Time: Noon–1:30 p.m. Pacific (3:00–4:30 p.m. Eastern)
Format and duration: 90 minutes, live on Zoom; not recorded.
Rate: $145 for either session.
Legal writers should convey ideas straightforwardly, use as few words as possible without sacrificing precision, and eliminate unnecessary jargon and legalese. The law is complex enough; our prose must not add complexity.
After the workshop, attorneys will get a reference handout summarizing key techniques. (No CLE credit is provided.)
AI Workflows for Lawyers (Presentation)
Date: Thursday, September 17, 2026
Time: Noon–1 p.m. Pacific (3:00–4:00 p.m. Eastern)
Format and duration: 60-minute presentation and Q&A, live on Zoom; not recorded
Rate: $199
AI can drastically enhance attorneys’ productivity if they use it safely and effectively. McCarl is a practicing litigator who knows how to code and spent two years researching AI on the UCLA Law faculty, so he can show you legal-AI workflows you are unlikely to have seen before. These require no specialized software — just a subscription to ChatGPT or Claude. McCarl will show you how he uses AI to dictate and revise documents; search and summarize documents; marshal evidence and map it to testimony; and more.
Prerequisites: The presentation will assume above-average general computing skills and basic familiarity with generative AI.
Legal-Writing Workshop: Strong Sentences
Readers should be able to understand a sentence in one pass without getting lost and needing to backtrack. This workshop explores how to give your prose a sense of forward movement and use varied sentence structures to control pace and emphasis. We’ll practice writing about characters performing actions, using punctuation to group information, and improving sentences’ rhythm.
Date: Thursday, October 1, 2026
Time: Noon–1:30 p.m. Pacific (3:00–4:30 p.m. Eastern)
Format and duration: 90 minutes, live on Zoom; not recorded
Rate: $145
Future workshops and presentations
Future events will discuss topics such as using legal authority, mapping legal arguments, and more. Subscribe to the blog and follow Ryan (and the new ELW page) on LinkedIn for announcements. McCarl also conducts private workshops for law firms and agencies, and offers legal consulting and representation through his firm Rushing McCarl LLP. Contact him through email or LinkedIn to learn more.