Using more acronyms do not make your writing seem impressive or make you sound more knowledgeable. In fact, the opposite may be true.
For example:
Following execution of the Select/CL & P Letter Agreement, CL & P filed an action with the DPUC to allow CL & P to recover from its customers the increased costs associated witht he LMP Differential Amount. The DPUC authorized CL & P to recover the LMP Differential Amount from its customers for sixty days and directed CL & P to file a petition for a declaratory order with the FERC. CL & P filed this petition on May 27, 2003, requesting FERC to order Select and other suppliers to bear SMD-related congestion costs and losses charges incurred in transmitting to its retail purchasers the energy CL & P purchased from suppliers. The petition bore Docket No. EL03-129-000 (the “FERC Proceeding”). Ses Def.’s Ex. 609. Thereafter, the DPUC allowed CL & P to continue to collect the LMP Differential Amount from its customers while the FERC Proceeding was pending and ordered that the monies be held in escrow pending resolution of the FERC Proceeding.
Constellation Power Source, Inc. v. Select Energy, Inc., 467 F. Supp. 2d 187, 201 (D. Conn. 2006).
Some acronyms and initialisms are well-known and helpful to the reader, such as UCC, CIA, or SEC. For the most part, courts are put off by heavy acronym and initialism use. As Mark Cooney puts it in Acronymonious, overuse of acronyms and initialisms by litigators is the “legal-writing equivalent of telling an inside joke.” More than that, acronyms and initialisms are code, jargon, and terms of art that likely have no meaning for the ordinary reader or generalist judges.
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner address acronym and initialism usage in their book Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges: “Avoid acronyms. Use the parties’ names” and stress that acronyms are “mainly for the convenience of the writer,” not the reader.
So, how do should lawyers avoid the ubiquitous acronyms and initialisms? Mark Cooney provides some guidance in his article:
- Use real words or shorthand phrases instead. Cooney provides the example of a judge who created a shorthand phrase to use in place of an industry shorthand. The case involve a dispute over phone rates involving the “total element long-run incremental cost method” commonly referred to as TELRIC. The judge avoided the industry acronym by substituting the “total element” method, which used real words and connotated the same meaning without requiring further translation.
- For party references, refer to parties by name or a shortened version of their names. For example, use “the Commission” rather than the CPSC for the Consumer Protection Safety Commission.
