the (new) legal writer

I wonder how many pages they used for their motion.

Here’s an interesting legal spat over typography, reported by the WSJ Law Blog and the ABA Journal. According to the stories, one law firm accused another of filing a brief with 1.75 line spacing instead of double-spacing, thus enabling them to squeeze about four more lines on each page of a brief limited to 25 pages. The accused law firm denied the charge, insisting that they used Times New Roman 12-point typeface with line spacing set at 24 points, exactly double the line height. Nevertheless, the judge gave the complaining law firm five extra pages for its response brief.

According to Matthew Butterick’s Typography for Lawyers, double-spacing in Word results in spacing about 233% of line height. So it does seem that, whether or not you can call it “double-spacing,” the accused law firm in fact managed to fit more lines on the page by opting for 24-point spacing in lieu of Word’s double-spacing.

On a related note, what do y’all think of this opening comment in the WSJ Law Blog item:

Lawyers, as good advocates, try to cram as many arguments as possible in their legal briefs, particularly when judges impose limits on how much they can say.

Bad typography = higher concentration?

My friend Scott Stolley spotted an article saying that bad typography might be better for your brief. The theory is that if the readers have to work harder to read it, they will remember it better. Scott is skeptical, and so am I. Still, I’m all for airing views contrary to conventional wisdom. And if the theory holds water, maybe we should explore whether oral argument in a whiny voice is more effective.

One space or two after a sentence?

One. Look it up.

p.s. For where to look it up, click here.

One space, not two, after each sentence.

I’ve written on this topic many times before (e.g. here), but too many out there either haven’t gotten the message or willfully resist it. So here we go again ...

If you are writing in a proportionately spaced font (i.e. almost anything besides Courier*), you need only one space—not two—at the end of each sentence. The latest and (in my mind) most authoritative voice saying so is Matthew Butterick. Besides being a lawyer, Matthew has credentials most lawyers lack in this area. He has a visual-arts degree from Harvard, where he learned traditional letterpress printing and digital font design. He worked as a font designer for several years before entering law school and becoming a practicing litigator. He explains on his web site and in his new book why, when writing in a proportionately spaced font, one space is enough and two is too many. So if you’re still {sigh} putting two spaces after every sentence, please read what Matthew has to say about it.

Matthew is not alone in his view. Every authority I’ve consulted on this question agrees with him, including the following:

• The Chicago Manual of Style §§ 2.12 and 6.11 (15th ed. 2003).
• The U.S. Seventh Circuit’s Requirements and Suggestions for Typography in Briefs and Other Papers, page 5.
• Ruth Anne Robbins, Painting With Print: Incorporating Concepts of Typographic and Layout Design into the Text of Legal Writing Documents, 2 J. Assn. Legal Writing Directors 108, 129 (Fall 2004) (recommended by the U.S. Seventh Circuit).
• Kenneth A. Adams, A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting, §§15.50–15.55 (2d ed. ABA 2008).

If you still insist on putting two spaces after every sentence despite using a proportionately spaced font, be my guest. But I’d like to know if anyone out there can cite any authority to support such a practice.

__________

* If, on the other hand, you’re using your computer to produce text in Courier or another monospaced font, put two spaces after every sentence, as you learned in typing class. But please consider re-examining your choice of fonts.

p.s. (31 Jan. 2011): For some high-minded debate on this topic, check out First Draft.

Typography for Lawyers — the book

I just finished reading Matthew Butterick’s new book, Typography for Lawyers. For lawyers and law students, I have two words of advice about this book: buy it. Why? Because every lawyer is a professional writer. So the lawyer’s writing should be professionally presentable, for the same reason that the lawyer should be professionally presentable when appearing in court or meeting a client. This book will tell you how to get there.

For myself, I thought I was relatively knowledgeable about typography. I’ve read Bryan Garner’s good advice about it in his various books. I’ve read Ruth Anne Robbins’s fine article, Painting With Print. And I’ve read the Seventh Circuit’s guidelines for briefs and other papers. I even taught myself how to put real apostrophes and quotation marks in my blog posts. But after reading this book, I realize how much more I need to learn.

Yesterday I linked to a blog post by Kendall Gray, showing before-and-after versions of a court opinion, the latter based on lessons learned from this book. Today Ernie Svenson posted a review of this book and presented his own writing samples applying lessons from this book. If  you haven’t done so already, check out Ernie’s review.

The difference good typography makes

Over at The Appellate Record, Kendall Gray took a typical opinion in typical type style (12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced), and re-did it using principles learn from Matthew Butterick’s new book, Typography for Lawyers. The difference is remarkable. Go there, have a look at the before and after versions, and lament court rules that force us to write and read stuff that looks like the before version.

Goodbye, Caps Lock.

Here’s some good news from the technology front: the good folks at Google who developed the new CR48 notebook computer omitted the Caps Lock key from the keyboard. If this innovation catches on, YOU WON’T EVER HAVE TO READ JUNK THAT LOOKS LIKE THIS.

For an old rant against the Caps Lock key, read this November 2006 post.

Hat tip @GRAMMARHULK, who will miss the Caps Lock key.

Your computer is not an Underwood typewriter. So stop putting two spaces after every sentence.

Sometimes I’m surprised at how tightly some otherwise clear-thinking people cling to what they learned in high-school typing class. When I took typing in high school, 37 years ago, I was taught to hit the space bar twice after each sentence. That was a good lesson back then, because I was typing on an Underwood manual typewriter, a machine incapable of producing anything in a proportionately spaced font.

Today, if you’re reading this blog post, then you probably write on a computer, not an Underwood typewriter. And unless you’re perverse enough to have set the default font in your word-processing software to Courier, everything you write on your computer is written in a proportionately spaced font. This fact makes the two-spaces rule obsolete. Once space after each sentence is enough.

Recently John McIntyre wrote about this; the flak he caught prompted him to write two follow-up posts (here and here). Me, I’m left wondering why anyone who cares deeply about getting their writing right would be so unwilling to re-examine what they learned in high school.

My prior blog posts on this should-be-uncontroversial topic are here, here, here, and here.

(Photo credit.)

Some worthwhile web sightings on legal writing

Here are some recent blog posts worth checking out:

• At the award-winning In Search of Perfect Client Service, Patrick Lamb explains why writing plainly is, well, good client service.


• Holden Oliver, managing editor of What About Clients?’s Kitzbühel Desk, thinks that writing plainly “would help diminish the image of the self-important “I’m-special” lawyer rocking back and forth in his chair, and talking to himself like a mental patient.” (I love that line!)


• At Writing Matters, Marilynne Rudick has a short list of tips for more effective proofreading.


• Finally, at Slaw.ca, Simmon Fodden shows why, unless you’re your briefs are professionally typeset, you need a ragged right margin and just one space—not two—after each sentence.

“Even if it’s bold italic ...”

And now, for something completely different—some guys who take their fonts a little too seriously. (Hat tip to First Draft.)