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Why should we strive for perfection, or at
least competence, in our writing? Are writing
skills important to lawyers? Yes - for many
reasons: think of them as PPP.
Pride in the profession. We write for
a living. Carpenters saw and nail. Pilots fly; painters
paint; surgeons cut. Lawyers write - even
litigators. Most cases settle and the litigator
writes a contract (settlement agreement).
Because writing is our job, we should strive to
master at least the fundamentals of grammar,
syntax (whatever that is), and style.
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Precision. Leaving out a serial
comma, misplacing a semicolon, or using the
wrong word can change the meaning of our
documents. Clients come to us for wills,
contracts, and lawsuits. All are written,
and they must be precise.
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Paycheck (the bill). Many clients
might not understand the legal nuances of
the documents you send them. But educated
clients, especially boomers - who are still
mainly in power - will spot grammatical
errors. The summary-judgment memo, trial
brief, appellate brief, contract, agency
filing, or whatever might cost more than a
new car, and almost surely more than a
boomer's first house. If your document has
grammatical errors, or the format is
unattractive, it will seem less worthy of
the charge. Your paycheck may come from your
firm. But the client must first pay the bill
for your work.
A mystery
Some lawyers continue to put County,
State, ss. on affidavits and other
documents. Why? Does anyone even know what
it signifies? Does it mean "sovereign
state"? That wouldn't make sense if
English lawyers started it, which they did.
Bryan Garner, in book we all should keep
on our desk, A Dictionary of Modern Legal
Usage (2nd Ed. 1995), solves the puzzle.
People have suggested different origins: (1)
an abbreviation for the word scilicet (to
wit); (2) a representation of the gold
letters hanging from the chain of the Lord
Chief Justice. But Garner discovered that
it's "simply a flourish, deriving from
the Year Books - an equivalent of the
paragraph mark:
'¶.'" It was intended to set
off each paragraph of a court record. But a
formbook writer put it into a form, and we
have mindlessly been repeating the error for
nine hundred years. Oh well.
Spellcheck
catches two lawyers
A recent brief told our court that an
alleged car thief had gotten the car from a
"dope feign named
Greyhound." Feign is a word, but
not the one the attorney wanted, which was fiend.
The other side copied the error, also
referring to the "dope feign."
Then, reading the trial transcript, we
noticed that the court reporter started it.
That is the first time I've seen Spellcheck
catch three people with one word.
Readability
I always show the readability scores for
the column. Statistics for this column: 11
words per sentence, 2 percent passive voice,
and grade level 7.8.
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Mark Painter
has served as a judge on the Ohio First
District Court of Appeals for 11 years,
after 13 years on the Hamilton County
Municipal Court. Judge Painter
is the author of The Legal Writer: 40 Rules
for the Art of Legal Writing. It is
available from http://books. lawyersweekly
.com. Judge Painter
has given dozens of seminars on legal
writing. Contact him through his website,
www.judge painter.org.
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