Typography for Lawyers: Clarity in Content & Composition

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The Legal Writing Institute recently presented the Golden Pen Award to Matthew Butterick for his groundbreaking book, Typography for Lawyers.

Butterick is both an attorney in Los Angeles, California specializing in criminal appeals and artists’ rights, as well as a graphic designer and typographist. In Typography for Lawyers, Butterick states that while legal writing is central to our work as attorneys, whether its a brief for the Supreme Court or a brief email for a client, good typography and elements of design is necessarily a part of good writing and good lawyering.

If you’re a skeptic, check out the website, which includes samples of legal documents transformed by Butterick’s typographical principles. You can’t deny that Butterick is onto something and a lot of important people in the legal writing community (like LWI and Bryan Garner) seem to agree.

Top 20 Common Sentence-Level Legal Writing Faults (And How To Fix Them)

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“If you can remember and identify these faults, you’ll become a more effective writer and self-editor,” according to legal writing guru, Bryan Garner. If you become a more effective and productive writer and self-editor, you will get a promotion and a raise. And win more cases. Okay, the last two are “maybes.”

Bryan Garner works tirelessly in his mission to reform legal writing and more specifically, legal writers. Because Bryan Garner cannot personally edit every written product hastily and sloppily produced (like a magical legal writing fairy) by poor legal writers, he produces helpful materials for legal writers of all experience levels. In this recent article, “The 20 Most Common Sentence-Level Faults Among Legal Writers,” Mr. Garner focuses not on the macro (large or small scale organization or content advice), but on the micro – the sentence-level. Good organization is essential, but the real communication occurs at the sentence level.

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Judges Find Plain-English Legal Writing More Persuasive

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A recent survey of almost 300 judges, including federal trial, federal appellate, state trial, and state appellate judges, reveals that judges overwhelmingly prefer plain-English legal writing to traditional “legalese” legal writing.

Judges commented that the plain-English version of a writing sample compared to a traditional legalese version of the same writing sample was “more persuasive because of the succinctness of the argument” and “easier to understand, more clear and straightforward, and therefore more persuasive.”  In Writing to Persuade Judges, Sean Flammer, found that judges found the cleaner, leaner plain-English version to be more effective and understandable.

Using Quotations Effectively in Legal Writing

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Beginning legal writers often lack confidence in their own words and instead rely on others to express what the novice cannot.  This reliance on quotations results in bulky and clumsy legal writing.  Unfortunately, experienced legal writers overuse quotations.

Readers (judges, other attorneys, your clients) want to know what YOU know and what YOU think, not that you read something and picked the best language without putting it into your own words.  The most effective legal writers use quotations sparingly and only when the quoted language itself is critical.  Summarize and paraphrase whenever possible.  An article from earlier this year in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin lays out a few rules for quoting effectively as well as some caveats.  In “Notes on Quotes: When and How to Borrow Language,” Rebekah Hanley discusses appropriate and effective use of quotations and an alternative to excessive quotations.

Tips for Writing to Generalist Judges

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Like doctors, lawyers are increasingly specializing their practices as the law becomes more intricate and dense.  These former lawyer specialists are now sitting on the bench in general jurisdiction courts, routinely making decisions on matters outside their former specialized practice areas.   These judges regularly rely on the bar to inform them on the relevant law.  But, how are specialist lawyers to effectively write and advocate to such generalist judges?  What information and how much information should the specialist lawyer present?

Douglas E. Abrams, author and law Professor at the University of Missouri, wrote a timely article in Precedent for the Missouri Bar Association, reprinted by the Nebraska Lawyer.  Effective Written Advocacy Before Generalist Judges: Advice from Recent Decisions examines the effects of lawyer specialization on the bench consisting of “generalist judges.”   From the beginning of each case, each judge is limited in his or her knowledge of not only the facts, but also the law.  According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, “courts rely on lawyers to identify the pertinent facts and law.”   And, because trial and appellate courts decide more cases on the written brief than oral argument, such identification of the law and legal issues as well as persuasion depends on the lawyer’s written product.

Abrams presents two strategies for effective written advocacy revealed by recent reported trial and appellate decisions: (1) Orienting the Court and (2) Avoiding Jargon. 

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