Good Legal Writing - A Short Primer for Lawyers

Last week I received an email from an associate with an attachment – a one page letter to adverse counsel. The email was one sentence: “Is this okay to send?” Here are the first two lines of the attached letter, word for word, the punctuation as it was in the letter:

This letter hereby rejects your notice of EBT dated March 23, 2007 of the father of my client scheduled for August 23, 2007. I admit I had a good laugh when I opened it considering we spoke just last week and you told me you were looking to get me a date for your clients deposition that you had previously requested to be adjourned.

Yes, that was actually written by a lawyer. I still can’t read it without cringing. Unfortunately, the same can be said about much of what we write. It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, as lawyers, language is perhaps our most important tool. The clearer, more concisely we write the better off we’ll be. Here then, are a few tips gleaned from a few Years trying to do just that:

• Know your audience. For lawyers this means really thinking about who will read your letter. When you make or side against a motion in a busy New York City trial court and the draft of a 30-short, do not expect to read it. Conversely, when you submit papers to a federal district court, it would have to be perfect, because the judge - and her law assistant - each word read.

• Like ThomasJefferson said: "[t] he most valuable talent is that never in two words when one will do." Cut In other words, the fat.

• Do not use "and then" when you mean "when." This is one of the most common - and terrible - mistakes I've seen over the years. "Then" refers to a date. "As" refers to a selection or "This is the opposite." So, "I would rather watch TV than the tasks" or "I then decided I better get to work." The two words can notbe used interchangeably.

• Use apostrophes appropriately. Just because a word ends in “s” doesn’t mean an apostrophe precedes the “s.” Thus, serving more than one subpoena does not make the word “subpoena’s.”

• A corollary to the previous rule is learning the appropriate uses of “it’s” and “its.” “It’s” is the contraction for “it is.” “Its” shows possession and has no apostrophe. So we would write “it’s a good case” or “the Defendant for the acts of its contractor is responsible, "but never, for example," the defendant is responsible for the actions of contractors. "

• Finally, consider your font / formatting. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have dozens of years and billions of dollars designing fonts that are not yet spent, as they come from a '60s-era typewriter. So why should anyone use the Courier? Or not fully justified margins? Arial may be a little informal for some legal documents, butTimes New Roman or Garamond certainly be preferable to a document, as it just came from an IBM Selectric look.

This is certainly not meant to give you a detailed review of the legal writing or the epitome of clarity - just some food for thought.