Justify thyself

Once again, my fellow appellate geeks and I here at Adams and Reese are heatedly debating the most controversial, emotion-charged issue facing the world today. No, it's not footnotes. It's full justification versus ragged-right margin. One of our number, brave defender of full justification and heedless of what the experts say here and here (and what one expert does here), enlisted the view of a relatively new associate who recently clerked at the Louisiana Supreme Court. The young man weighed in with this observation and recommendation:

Everyone...and I mean everyone....at the Court writes with full-justification.  The writ reports, recommendations, memos, etc.  It is an unspoken rule.... I would always recommend full for the Supremes.

So I took a look at what the our Supreme Court actually does. Here's what I found:

1. When they issue opinions, they indeed use full justification. Here's a recent example.
2. But just about everything else they publish is left justified. Two recent examples are the 2002–2003 State of Judicial Performance in Louisiana and the Court's 2003 Annual Report. Seven other fine examples are the justices' own bios on the Court's web site. In fact, the entire web site, recently revamped, features left-justified, ragged-right throughout.

It seems when the legal professionals do the formatting, it comes out full justified. But when the typography pros get a hold of it, it is published with ragged right—with the justices' blessing. What lesson should we amateur typographers draw from this fact?

Here's what I say: The principles of good typography are the same for a brochure as they are for a court opinion. This is an extension of a more general rule: The principles of good legal writing are the same as those of good non-fiction writing generally. If it's good enough for the Annual Report, it's good enough for a brief or an opinion.

The only defense I've ever heard for full justification is that it's more "formal," "dignified," and "lawyerly." Doesn't that sound like what the defenders of legalese say? How many of you full-justification fans out there want to defend legalese?

Comments

[Dave!]

I love the look of justified text... until I start to read it. It makes for pretty pages and poor reading.

[Casey Fos]

Full justification. I never really noticed that one "reads" easier that the other.

[Rebunga]

I always use full. On everything. Even footnotes.

Re: the Supremes, I clerked there too (years ago). Its pretty obvious that the justices like full justification on the opinions. I dont think the annual reports (which are compiled by the Judicial Administrator - Dr. Collins) have anything to do with the Court's preference in pleadings.

[Steve]

I say full and just.

The new guy next door down is a heretic on this issue.

[Mike]

I like ragged edges. Full justification looks good in books, but in pleadings and briefs, it makes the pages look s t r e t c h e d.

[dru]

Left aligned is definatly easier to read. It is spaced in a predictable pattern which lets the reader read faster. If you don't find it difficult to read it is most likely that you have just adjusted to the extra burden. Keeping the text together is important as we can only take so much in at one time. "A guy called Emile Javal, a French oculist, found in 1906 that we fixate on a target of 5 to 7 characters wide" (1)

1. http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=55303#55303 - 2946 Bill Hill

[Gloria]

As a transcription services provider, I use full justification if a client chooses that, but if they have no preference, I use left justification. And I always use left for proofreading. It's just easier to follow when reading over 40 or 50 pages of text.

[Ray]

Exactly. People can have different subjective opinions about which alignment they think is more aesthetically pleasing. But left-justified text is undoubtedly easier to read.

[Stephen R. Diamond]

If left-justified text is easier to read, why are books always fully justified? Is it a matter of having to spend a lot of time kerning the text to get it right?

[Ray]

Something like that. Books are professionally typeset. Stuff you write on your computer isn’t.

[Krish]

Left justified text-blocks make the reader easier to scan the lines at the end and proceed to the next line. The user is assured to continue with the word, where he left, even after a pause or look away from the text. On the other hand full justifiation will strain the eyes to loose continuity.