Set in Style

Consider the beginning of this press release:

EpsteinBeckerGreen Ranked Among Top Firms for Diversity by MultiCultural Law Magazine

7/22/2010

NEW YORK (July 22, 2010) – National law firm EpsteinBeckerGreen is pleased to announce that the Firm has been ranked among the leading law firms for diversity by MultiCultural Law magazine.

EpsteinBeckerGreen ranked 3^rd in the magazine’s listing for the “Top 50 Law Firms for Partners” and ranked 6^th in its “Top 25 Law Firms for African-Americans” listing. The Firm also ranked 21^st in its “Top 100 Law Firms for Women” listing.

“Our Firm is committed to maintaining a diverse workforce and fostering a work culture that promotes diversity in which our attorneys and staff members can develop to their fullest potential,” said Douglas Hastings, Chair of the Board of Directors and a Member of the Firm’s Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the Washington, D.C. office.

The reader’s eye is drawn to the second paragraph because of the greater spacing between the lines than in the surrounding paragraphs. The extra spacing is due to the use of superscripts in the ordinals (e.g., 3^rd).

Is there a better way of presenting the information?

Let’s see:

EpsteinBeckerGreen Ranked Among Top Firms for Diversity by MultiCultural Law Magazine

NEW YORK (July 22, 2010) – National law firm EpsteinBeckerGreen is pleased to announce it has been ranked among the leading law firms for diversity by MultiCultural Law magazine.

EpsteinBeckerGreen ranked:

#3 in “Top 50 Law Firms for Partners”
#6 in “Top 25 Law Firms for African-Americans”
#21 in “Top 100 Law Firms for Women”

“Our Firm is committed to maintaining a diverse workforce and fostering a work culture that promotes diversity in which our attorneys and staff members can develop to their fullest potential,” said Douglas Hastings, Chair of the Board of Directors and a Member of the Firm’s Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the Washington, D.C. office.

The advantage?

There are several:

1. It’s easier for readers* to parse a list when it is set as a list.
2. Setting this list as a list gives it greater emphasis — it’s likely to be the first thing a reader reads.
3. It looks more professional.

Of Special Note: The latest issue of Multicultural Law magazine was published in Fall of 2008.
Here’s the complete list of the Top 100 Law Firms for 2010; the list was ‘announced’ in May, 2010.

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* It’s a very good thing to serve readers, to make it easier for them to read what you’ve published, especially when you hope to convert those readers from potential clients to the sort that pay.

You’re the managing partner of a law firm, and you’re a lawyer, not a publisher.

Oh . . . Just a minute . . . You are a publisher!

Your firm publishes your firm’s web site, right?

Since you’re the firm’s managing partner, you’re the firm’s publisher as well, right?

Wrong?

Well . . . if not you, then who is responsible for what your firm publishes?

Someone in marketing? How quaint!

California Supreme Court To Decide Interplay Between Severability-of-Interests Clause And Intentional Acts Exclusion

by Patrick McKinney

Can an insurance company deny coverage to a homeowner who did nothing intentional because another insured under the policy committed a crime or intentional tort?

The first line of this article suffers from a problem that plagues us all — putting things out of place.

No doubt, the author didn’t intend because another insured . . . . to modify a homeowner.

I’m sure the author meant this:

Can an insurance company deny coverage to a homeowner because another insured committed a crime or intentional tort?

By inserting another phrase (who did nothing intentional) between the modifier and what it’s meant to modify (homeowner), it seems as if the author is asking about coverage for a homeowner who did nothing intentional because another insured committed a crime.

That’s how we first read it, and that’s because of its syntax.

Now . . . it takes a reader just an instant to realize what modifies what, but the reader shouldn’t have to go through that effort. The writer (or his editor) should make sure the readers’ job is as easy as can be, especially so in the intro.

If the reader gets the sense that an article is going to be a chore to read, he might not go past the intro. And that means the article is ineffective (i.e., you can’t influence people with what they won’t read).

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* This is one in a series of posts on how to gain and maintain a reader’s attention. In other words, how to get a return on your investment in SEO.

You’re an attorney, not a typesetter.

You’re concerned with the wording of agreements, briefs, or contracts, not the details of how those words are rendered.

But — if your goal is to persuade — you should be concerned, and that’s because appearance matters: first impressions do too.

Let me say it again — the first impression someone has of what you wrote isn’t what you wrote; it’s the appearance of it.

If you think first impressions are important and good looks are good to have, then take my advice and apply it to whatever you’re producing — a brief or a client alert.

Set Heads in Sans-Serif Type, Like This

Type can be classified as Serif or San-Serif.

Sans-Serif type doesn’t have small strokes at the end of characters.

Serif type does.

Don’t Set Body Copy in Sans-Serif Type

For the sake of your readers, set your heads in Sans-Serif type, and set your copy in Serif type, like this.

Set the Heading of the Table of Contents with One Word

The correct way to set heading of a table of contents is with just one word — Contents

Hyphenate Justified Copy

Go to a book store. Grab a new hardcover book, and look at the copy in it.

I’ll bet you the copy’s justified. In other words, each line of type is the same length.

And it’s hyphenated. Look at the ends of lines along the right margin. Every so often, a line ends with a hyphen that breaks a word in two.

If you want your copy to look as good as can be, set it justified and hyphenated. Concern yourself with the consistency of the spacing between words, and don’t set the lines too wide or narrow.

If you hope to persuade, don’t forget how helpful small courtesies can be.

Put Just One Space after a Period — Not Two

Look at hardcover books, or magazines, or newspapers, or advertisements. Look at textbooks.

What you’ll find is one space, not two, after any type of stop. Using two instead of one now appears old-fashioned.

Use an Indent or Vertical Space to Indicate a New Paragraph — Not Both

You’re still in the book store looking at those hardcover books — the ones vying to be on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Find one that strikes you as especially attractive.

What you’ll find is that the table of contents is set with one word, heads are set in sans-serif type, copy is set in serif type and it’s hyphenated and justified, there’s just one space after a period, and each paragraph begins with an indent OR a space between it and the paragraph above it.

Imitate the Pros

Just go to a book store and see how the pros (those who sell print) do it. And then imitate the ones that look best.

Postscript

If you prefer to hear this from an attorney rather than an editor, visit Matthew Butterick’s  Typography for Lawyers.

Ask any good writing instructor what’s important, and you’re likely to hear about introductions, and how critical they are to attracting readers.

That applies to blog posts published by law firms seeking clients.

Consider the intro to this blog post:

Insurance Coverage for Food Contamination Recall

by Karen Kimmey

Recalls of food believed to be contaminated can be massively expensive for the companies required to implement them, and the availability of insurance coverage for such expenses is often disputed.

One recent complaint to raise this issue is . . . .

The blog post goes on to explain a recent ruling.

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A skilled and experienced editor has two issues with this intro. Well, three issues:

1. The headline lacks a verb.
2. The copy isn’t concise.
3. The second paragraph throws readers a curve.

The Headline

A headline has a purpose, and it needs a subject AND a verb to achieve it — to give readers some idea of what happened. How else can they decide if the article’s worth reading?

The Copy

The first line starts the discussion, and it shows what the writer assumes: Busy People Have Time to Spare.

It sounds like the post might be about the availability of insurance coverage, but it’s not.

Busy people want to know, as soon as they can, whether an article’s worth reading.

The beginning of the second paragraph refers to this issue. What issue? food contamination? The expense of recalls? The availability of coverage? Disputes about availability?

The Edited Version

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Here’s the intro after it’s been touched by a skilled and experienced editor:

Insurance Coverage for Recall of Contaminated Food Disputed

by Karen Kimmey When the FDA orders a recall of food products, it can be very expensive for the companies involved, and disputes about insurance coverage can arise.

Consider the complaint recently filed . . . .

That’s better.

It uses fewer words, so it takes readers less time.

It says the topic of the post is disputes about insurance coverage, so those interested in that sort of thing can decide to continue reading.

And it makes the attorney seem like a more skilled and thoughtful writer. That can only be to her advantage, right?

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Oh! One more thing. People searching for information regarding disputes about insurance coverage are more likely to discover the edited version.

I’m marking up a disclaimer for an attorney’s blog.

The first line is a run-on:

This Blog/Web Site (“Blog”) does not provide specific legal advice, it is for educational purposes only.

I mark it up like so:

This blog does not provide specific legal advice. It is for educational purposes only.

The lawyer responds to the mark-up:

That first line was the result of an elaborate debate I cannot afford to reopen.

Huh? Who debates whether to publish an error?

If you’re responsible for the content at your firm’s web site, take my advice — do regular maintenance on the site, like it was a car that needed its oil checked every so often.

A web site — a site with lots and lots of content — is the sort of appliance that needs regular maintenance to keep doing it’s thing — attracting potential clients and leaving them with a favorable impression of your firm.

Let’s say a potential client is looking for some information on copyrights, and he discovers this page that looks to have just what he’s looking for.

He clicks this link on the page and gets nothing in return. Ditto when he clicks this link, or this one, or this one.

That’s not good, because this potential client isn’t likely to form a favorable impression of the firm, simply because the firm’s web site isn’t working right.

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Here’s what you should do if you’re responsible for a site with lots of content: establish a regular maintenance schedule that includes a daily, weekly, or monthly review of the site’s error logs.

If you don’t know how to do that, call me.

I can help you prevent potential clients from getting a bad impression of your firm just because everyone’s too busy to keep track of the web site — and that does happen.

I’m doing some research for an article I’m writing when I find this article (“Lawyers, Laptops, and the Border” published by the Texas Bar Journal) republished by a law firm (the firm of the author of the article).

The first page looks great, but there’s something strange about the second page — the type looks fuzzy. The page is an image!

The next two pages look good, but then there’s another page that’s an image, and another. What the heck?

And then it comes to me. The pages that are images have been altered. The ads that appeared on them have been removed. In the process (the wrong one to use), the pages became images.

Does it matter? You bet, and here’s why.

The firm republished the article to help attract prospects (via the magical powers of SEO). There just might be someone out there searching for information on “lawyers facing border searches,” and republishing the article means that that someone (a potential client, perhaps?) might discover the firm and that could make the article very worthwhile.

Ah . . . the wonders of SEO . . . .

But that someone isn’t going to discover the firm because a search for “lawyers facing border searches” won’t reveal the article. The page containing that phrase is an image, rather than text. So far as search engines are concerned, that page is a blank page.

And blank pages (blank to search engines, that is) have no SEO value at all.

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Some law firms don’t know all the ins and outs of publishing. Or maybe they do, but they’re trying to hide something.

Let me show you what I mean. Consider this article (“The fine art of actually collecting legal fees” published by the National Law Journal) republished by a law firm (the firm of the author of the article).

It’s a photocopy of the original!

Now . . . why would a law firm republish a low-res photocopy of an article when it can publish a high-quality reprint of the article?

I can think of two reasons:

1. The firm can’t afford reprint rights and wants to hide the fact that it’s republishing NLJ articles without permission, or
2. The folks in marketing simply don’t know how to use modern office equipment (e.g., computers).

Either way, since it’s a photocopy, the NLJ can’t rely on search engines to see if the article’s been republished by those who haven’t paid for reprint rights.

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Try this. Do a search for The financial reform law signed into law. Put the phrase in quotes (and don’t include the period).

If you use Google to do the search, there are nine results, each beginning with the phrase The financial reform law signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21. And they all point to the NLJ article.

Fine!

Now search for as money flows into nonprofits. The only result is this article published by the San Francisco Business Times.

Compare that article to this one.

The latter is a photocopy of the original, and that’s why it doesn’t show up in the search results — so far as Google is concerned, it’s a blank page.

In fact, the page is so blank it cannot be discovered by potential clients or the publisher that holds the copyright to the article (American City Business Journals, known to actively search for copyright violations).

The SEO value of a photocopied article is nil.

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I’ll say it again — attorneys who don’t ever bother to look at their firms’ web sites are not practicing the sort of due diligence they claim to use in all they do.

I believe that’s not wise.

If you’re an attorney — especially one who cares for the finer points of English — then you should (in my opinion) subscribe to Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day. (Click here.)

If you write to persuade and strive to improve, a subscription is like having a writer’s little treasure chest.

I subscribe, and I just looked at today’s tip, which follows up on a tip from last week about phrasal verbs.

In today’s tip, Garner offers four caveats. Here are the first two:

First, when using [a phrasal verb], include the entire phrase and not just the primary verb. Don’t say that two things “cancel each other” if what they’re really doing is “canceling each other out.”

Second, don’t use a phrasal verb if the adverbial particle is simply baggage that doesn’t add to meaning. Thus, don’t say “meet up with” if “meet” suffices. Don’t say “connect up” or “divide up” if “connect” or “divide” suffices.

I find a contradiction between them. The first says, “Expand.” The second says, “Don’t.”

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Well . . . here’s my 2¢ contribution:

As a general rule, less is more (persuasive) — the fewer words it takes to say something, the more powerful those words are. (There are quite a few exceptions to the rule, but they all serve some purpose.)

And some things cancel others. In this world, a positive cancels a negative; cold cancels heat; dark cancels light.

In mathematics, one operation cancels another. There’s no in or out about it, and it’s entirely correct to say, “These two effects cancel one another.” Out is not needed at all.

The same applies to printing. You print a page. You don’t print it in or out (even if the page came out of a printer).

OK. It’s only a space and three characters, but it’s a solid cut, and when it comes to packing your words with power, every cut counts.

I found this disclaimer at a law firm’s web site just the other day:

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN OUR WEB SITE DESCRIBES LEGAL MATTERS HANDLED IN THE PAST BY OUR ATTORNEYS. OF COURSE, THE RESULTS WE HAVE ACHIEVED DEPEND UPON A VARIETY OF FACTORS UNIQUE TO EACH MATTER. BECAUSE EACH MATTER IS DIFFERENT, OUR PAST RESULTS CANNOT PREDICT OR GUARANTEE A SIMILAR RESULT IN THE FUTURE.

Results can’t predict results? Well of course they can’t.

Neither can most fortune tellers, but why should a law firm bother to mention it? And why do it with a grammatical error?

According to the firm’s marketing director, it’s required.

Curious, I review the Rules of Professional Conduct, published by the Virginia State Bar, which has a rule (7.2(a)(3)) that requires attorney advertisements to carry a disclaimer stating that RESULTS CANNOT PREDICT A SIMILAR RESULT!

Is Virgina trying to out do New York, which requires the following statement on attorney ads:

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

So, if you hire a New York attorney who’s won some and lost some, you can expect who-knows-what!