Andrew P. Connors

…although you should have an acquaintance with it.  As a professor at the Legal Skills Prof Blog notes:

The rule I teach my students is that a writer should always use the active voice unless the writer has a specific reason to use passive.  For example, the passive is useful for hiding the actor, which is often useful in persuasive writing.

The more basic point is that writers should never just blindly apply the rules, but they should always consider how that rule works in context.  For example, I tell my students that they should always think about every word they write to make sure that every word has the meaning and emotion intended.

I agree.  As I’ve stressed before (here, here, and here), good writing is key to success in law school and in the practice of law.  Purposefully avoiding passive voice will generally make your writing better.  However, there are times when passive voice is not only acceptable in legal writing, but is preferable to the active voice form of the sentence.  So, you shouldn’t see passive voice with such frequency in your writing that you consider it your “friend,” but a casual acquaintance with these kinds of sentences is a good idea.