Set in Style

The firm of Vinson & Elkins has a scholarship program for high school students who are interested in “pursuing a career in law.”

Great! But take a look at these excerpts from the firm’s overview of the program.

The funds for each student are submitted directly to their school . . . .

In addition to the financial support, V&E provides each scholarship recipient mentors and a summer job opportunities.

Each recipient achieved a score of at least 1100 on the SAT, had a financial need, and provided the Foundation with their application . . . and two letters of recommendation from their high school teachers and/or counselors . . . .

While the students’ English teachers are teaching them to avoid singular/plural disagreements, the firm is suggesting that those disagreements are OK.

Here’s another excerpt from the overview:

In December 2002, two more of our Scholars graduated with their undergraduate degrees.

While the students’ English teachers are teaching them to avoid prepositional phrases that dangle, the firm is suggesting that those phrases are OK.

Go figure!

A bit of a dispute between Wayne Scheiss and George Gopen about Strunk & White’s rule to omit needless words appears at idealawg.

Schiess offers this sentence, recently written by one of his students:

“The witness acted as if he were not all completely there.”

He then poses the question: “The advice to omit needless words seems to apply, no?”

Gopen disagrees. Omit completely, and the sentence suggests the witness was suffering from a mental illness; omit all and it suggests the witness wasn’t paying attention. Either omission, says Gopen, leaves us with a sentence that doesn’t quite say “what this student was trying to say.”

Who knows what this student was trying to say?

The problem with the sentence can’t be solved by tossing this word or that. After the omission, we still don’t know how the witness was acting.

If the student meant to say the witness acted as if he wasn’t paying attention, he should have said that; if he meant to say the witness acted as if he was suffering a mental illness, he should have said that.

That’s my take on it.

Take a look at just about any newspaper. More than likely, the body copy is set in 10-pt Times Roman.

This isn’t a coincidence. The selection of that font is quite intentional.

Now, compare law firm Web sites. Compare a page at Thelen Reid’s site to a page at Sedgwick’s site to a page at Pillsbury Winthrop’s site.

Not much in the way of consistency, is there? The selection of fonts at most law firm Web sites seems more random than anything else.

For some reason, the body copy at very many law firm Web sites is set in a font that’s far too small for the average reader to read. (Note that the copy at Thelen Reid’s site is much easier to read than the copy at the other two sites. Apparently, whoever designed Thelen Ried’s site gave some thought to readability.)

Those responsible for the design of law firm Web sites would do well to consider the advice of those who know much about such things. They would do well to consider what Jakob Nielsen, whom the New Yawk Times called “the guru of Web page usability,” has to say about such things.

Let’s suppose you want to file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. Then you’ve got a strict limit — you have to set your case in less than 882 square inches using nothing finer than Times Roman, set 11 on 13.

And let’s suppose that you can’t meet this limit without omitting something you really want the court to consider.

Then consider this — a competent typesetter can buy you an additonal page or two!

How? By doing the things that typesetters normally do:

• by setting the copy in a professional typesetting program (rather than Microsoft Word).
  
• by using hyphens to break the ends of fully justified lines.
  
• by using modern, rather than French, spacing.
  

And consider this — a good editor can save you an additional page or two or three or four!

How? By doing what editors do commonly do, like:

changing this:

“The Regulations provide sample notices, which, after appropriate individualized revisions, plan administrators can use to meet certain of their legal obligations.”

to this:

“The regulations provide sample notices that group health plan administrators can customize.”

or changing this:

“The County sent an inspector who made observations as to the condition of the sidewalk and concluded that it was uneven.”

to this:

“A county inspector examined the sidewalk and concluded it was uneven.”

or changing this:

“Provide notice to an employee and his or her spouse concerning their rights under COBRA within 90 days after “coverage under the plan commences.”

to this:

“Notify employees and their spouses of their rights under COBRA within 90 days after “coverage under the plan commences.”

A good editor who knows how to set type can get you (typically) two to six additional pages worth of copy for a 30-page brief.

French spacing (e.g., setting two spaces, rather than one, after a period) is not a distinctly French phenomenon. More accurately, it’s old-fashioned, and neither the French, nor the English, nor us Yanks, do it anymore. Just pick up a copy of Le Monde and see how it’s set. The spaces between sentences are no greater than the spaces between words.

There are plenty of differences between the way copy is set in France and the way it’s set in the U.S.

In France:

• Proper adjectives — like french and english and american — are set down, rather than up.

• 2:30 pm is set 14h30.

• June 23, 1975 is set 23 juin 1975.

• 75% is set 75 %.

• Punctuation is set after a closing quote, rather than before.

• « Guillemets are often used in place of English quotation marks. »

There are plenty of other differences, some of which involve the spacing around punctuation. For instance, thin spaces separate guillemets from the text they enclose, and spaces are set before question marks, exclamation marks, and colons.

An article published by a Canadian law firm is set one way in French and another way in English. Despite all the little differences, note that even the French don’t use French spacing at the end of a sentence; even French lawyers don’t do it!

But French lawyers do have this in common with their Yankee counterparts — they don’t bother to hyphenate fully justified copy (and they do use Microsoft Word to set final copy).

Consider the following copy from an attorney’s bio:

Ms. Abkin represents clients in civil and criminal tax matters at all levels of the IRS, including exams, appeals, collection, and, where necessary, litigation.

Literally, the writer is telling the reader that exams and appeals are different levels of the IRS.

In this instance, it’s easy enough to see what the writer meant; it’s even easier to see that the writer did not run this by an editor before it was published.

The result? A common error, and a subtle warning from the firm to all potential clients: “We don’t review our work!”

Law firms aren’t known for their creativity, but when it comes to discussing the diversity of their attorneys, they do try some things that others have not. Such is the case with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati which recently revised its copy regarding diversity. Here’s a bit of it:

Currently, nearly a third of our partners and half of our associates are women or belong to a racial, ethnic, or gender minority group.

Now, that is very creative! I don’t know what it means, but it’s certainly unique.

While a computer is not an old typewriter, most law firms do their best to make it seem so. They use tick marks for quotes, hypens for dashes, and underlines for emphasis. They put two spaces after a full stop, and they set subscripts and superscripts on baseline. They use headline type for body copy. They fully justify everything they can, but they do it without hyphenation. To top it all off, they use Microsoft Word to set final copy.

Take a look at the copy at most any law firm’s Web site, and compare that to the copy at a newspaper’s Web site.

The copy at the newspaper’s Web site looks quite a bit different than the copy at the law firm’s Web site. The newspaper uses a serif typeface for the body copy; the law firm uses a sans-serif face, such as Arial (i.e., a face designed for heads, not body copy). The newspaper uses quotes and apostrophes; the law firm uses tick marks. The newspaper uses en dashes, and the law firm uses hyphens. The spacing between the words in the newspaper is very uniform; the spacing between the words in the law firm’s copy is not.

Does it matter? Sure it does, especially when the law firm claims that it’s expert in the use of computer technology, and that it “strives for excellence” in all it does.

Here are some sources of information on how to set copy like the pros:

A Practical Guide to Web Typography

Designorati: Typography

Typographica. A Journal of Typography

InDesign Type: Professional Typography

It’s a rule that’s taught in high school — a prepositional phrase modifies a verb or a noun. That’s its purpose.

Consider the following sentence, published by one of the nation’s leading law firms.

Given the mobility of the high-tech workforce, the firm also has handled numerous disputes involving industry leaders over the ability to protect trade secrets and to enforce nondisclosure agreements, covenants not to compete, and similar restrictive covenants, for example, in stock option agreements.

The sentence begins with a prepositional phrase, but the phrase modifies nothing at all. It has no relation to the clause that follows it.

An editor can help you avoid such mistakes, and can help you present yourself as someone who has a strong command of English.

If you keep up on such things, then you know the story — Cisco Systems is suing Apple Computer for trademark infringement. It’s an interesting story, but this blog isn’t about interesting stories — it’s about law firm publishing.

The firm representing Cisco is Folger Levin & Kahn, and it provides two good examples of quality writing.

The first example is the writing at the firm’s Web site. It portrays the firm as one that really cares about how it portrays itself.

The second example is the complaint against Apple. Not only is it very well done, but the complaint was filed just one day after Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. That portrays the firm as one that does good work quickly (even though it did spend much more than one day preparing the complaint).