The Board of Directors of Scribes, the American Society of Legal Writers, voted unanimously on April 14, 2023 to add WordRake Chief Strategy & Growth Officer Ivy B. Grey to their ranks. Ivy will take her post in June of this year, completing a partial term through October 2024.
Scribes, publisher of the Journal of Legal Writing and The Scrivener, advocates clear, succinct, forceful legal writing. Its nearly 2,700 legal writers include lawyers, judges, law professors and deans, and legal editors, and its institutional membership extends to law schools and appellate courts. Scribes’ coveted awards cover facets of the legal writing field from briefs to books, and recognize those who have achieved its main goal: good writing.
Legal Writing and Technology: Leadership for the 21st Century
Ivy represents an important new voice in the legal writing world: Legal tech. As legal professionals have moved from the pen to the typewriter to the desktop to the cloud, technology has become an integral part of the legal writing process. The addition of technology competence to the American Bar Association’s Model Rule of Conduct 1.1 shows how crucial technology is to legal practice.
As a leader in the legal tech world, Ivy has spent years promoting and supporting excellence in legal and business writing. Practicing bankruptcy law for ten years before transitioning to her current role, she contributes a crucial perspective in the quest for competent legal writing: how to make it a reality for all legal practitioners and educators. “Her comfort with technology will be a tremendous asset to Scribes,” said Scribes’ Journal Senior Editor Mark Cooney.
Ivy B. Grey: A Voice for Tech in Legal Writing
Ivy is the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at WordRake, which makes clear and concise editing software for professionals working in Microsoft Word and Outlook. Created by legal writing expert and New York Times bestselling author Gary Kinder, WordRake uses over 35,000 algorithms to make editing suggestions for writing with brevity and simplicity. Ivy’s role includes the creation of professional development materials for legal professionals to help them improve their writing and communication skills.
“Ivy is classic Scribes,” shares Mark. “She practiced and thus knows how important it is for lawyers to write clearly and effectively while handling cases. Her work with WordRake puts her in the vanguard of legal writing. She is active, visible, and engaged with the legal-writing community. She brings a passion for writing -- and specifically for reader-centered legal writing in plain language.”
Ivy is excited for the opportunity to support legal professionals through her membership on the Board. “Our writing represents our thinking, so it’s the most important thing lawyers do each day. Anything less than excellence is a disservice to our clients,” says Ivy. “I read Scribes’ Journal of Legal Writing, and I admire the people in the legal writing community. It’s an honor to contribute to a friendly community that promotes excellence in legal writing.” She looks forward to getting more deeply involved with Scribes and its work making legal writing clear, direct, and persuasive. She will take up her post at the June 30, 2023 meeting of the Board.
The Scribes Board
Ivy joins a group of dedicated, brilliant legal minds, including:
President
John Browning, Faulkner University School of Law
Executive Director
Philip Johnson, UIC School of Law
Vice President
Professor Teri McMurtry-Chubb, UIC School of Law
Treasurer
Michele Jochner, Schiller DuCanto & Fleck LLP
Secretary
Dean Emily Janoski-Haehlen, University of Akron School of Law
Past President
Professor Mark E. Wojcik, UIC School of Law
Headquarters
Dean Darby Dickerson, Southwestern Law School
Incoming Executive Director
Bradley Yost, Southwestern Law School
Journal Editor
Professor Megan Boyd, Georgia State University College of Law
2022-2025
Professor Brooke Bowman, Stetson University College of Law
Professor Joseph Kimble, Western Michigan University
Hon. Jean Rosenbluth, United States District Court for the Central District of California
2021-2024
Charles D. Cole, Jr., Newman Myers Kreines Gross Harris, P.C.
Hon. Kem Thompson Frost, Former Chief Justice, Texas 14th Court of Appeals (Retired)
2020-2023
Hon. Michael B. Hyman
Professor Katrina Lee, Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law
Professor Mark Cooney, Western Michigan University, Cooley Law School
Emeritus Board Member
Christopher G. Wren, Wisconsin Department of Justice (Ret.)
More About Scribes
Scribes was founded in 1951 by Chief Justice Arthur T. Vanderbilt of New Jersey and several colleagues to “promote and pay tribute to excellence in legal writing.” Its first meeting included 41 chartering members, with the requirement that each had written one book or at least three legal articles. New members had to be nominated by an existing one. In the years since, the Society has moved from a focus on recognition of an elite group of legal minds to a focus on excellent writing for all legal professionals. Reducing the requirements for full membership and adding Institutional and Associate categories, Scribes now boasts a membership of nearly 2,700 professionals.
Scribes’ activities are twofold: educating the next generation of legal writers, and celebrating excellence in legal writing. Issuing its first Scribes Book Award in 1961, the Society has since developed recognition for Law Review and Brief Writing. Their Lifetime Achievement Award has celebrated such legal greats as US Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, and Stephen Bryer, and former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Harry Kenneth Woolf.
Speakers from Scribes have been educating law students since the early 1960’s, and the Society hosted their first Legal-Writing Institute in 1975. Over the course of the next two decades, they hosted seven more. In recent years, Scribes has held its board meetings at laws schools and in exchange run legal writing programs for the host school’s students.
Through years of growth and change, Scribes has remained dedicated to its core principles:
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to foster a feeling of fraternity among those who write about the law — and especially among its members;
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to create an interest in writing about the history, philosophy, and language of the law and about those who make, interpret, and enforce it;
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to help and encourage people who write about the law; and
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above all, to promote a clear, succinct, and forceful style in legal writing.
More About WordRake
WordRake professional editing software for Microsoft Word and Outlook was developed specifically for legal writers to bring clarity and simplicity to their writing. Released in 2012, WordRake was created by author and writing teacher Gary Kinder to address the writing patterns he noticed teaching workshops to legal and business writers. WordRake finds unnecessary words and phrases, jargon and legalese, and high-level grammar errors, and makes recommendations for changes in the text.
WordRake runs on a set of over 35,000 algorithms created in a collaboration between software engineers and legal and professional writing experts. Each algorithm is rigorously tested and reviewed, so its editing suggestions are like asking a human editor to check your writing. WordRake isn’t AI, so there’s no machine learning, and no communication with the cloud. The software is installed only on the local computer, so you can edit sensitive documents with confidence they will remain secure.
WordRake is integrated into the ribbon in MS Word and Outlook, so it’s easy to find and use. Once a document is Raked, the recommendations appear in the familiar Track Changes style. In 2022, WordRake introduced a new editing mode: Simplicity. Users can select to edit for Brevity, Simplicity, both at once, or one after the other, and see changes based on their priorities. Simplicity mode was created specifically to comply with plain language laws, and helps users write accessibly.
WordRake is the perfect editing companion for anyone who writes for work. Try it for 7 days and see how its editing suggestions can help you bring clarity and brevity to your writing.
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