Set in Style

If you assume that the audience for your firm’s client alerts and newsletters consists of pretty busy people, then you’ll make sure those client alerts and newsletters are written for pretty busy people, right?

Experience tells us that some lawyers use far too many words when they write, but excessive verbiage is just the sort of thing that drives busy readers away. So, one thing that editors of client alerts and newsletters need to do is this: get rid of unnecessary words.

One way to do that — and enliven the copy — is to change instances of present perfect tense to simple past tense.

OK. You haven’t taken middle-school English for quite some time so you don’t recall what those two tenses are. Here are a few examples (taken from this client alert):

Present Perfect: The SO sets out the Commission’s preliminary conclusion that Rambus has illegally charged unreasonably high royalties for some patents relating to DRAM technology.

Simple Past: The SO sets out the Commission’s preliminary conclusion that Rambus illegally charged unreasonably high royalties for some patents relating to DRAM technology.

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Attorneys tend to spend their days writing a certain way — the way of contracts and briefs, provisions and terms, agreements and statements of fact, all for a small audience of judges and clerks and other counsel.

Now, suppose you’re an attorney.

And suppose that — rather than writing for a small audience of other attorneys who expect great detail on something specific — you’re going to write a client alert (or a magazine article, perhaps) for a much larger audience more interested in a wider view.

Then you need to adjust your style. Here’s why:

When you write legal matter, your audience is captive and limited. You don’t have to be interesting. But when you write copy to attract clients — copy for newsletters, alerts, articles, etc. — you do have to be interesting. And that’s because you need to draw the audience.

For some reason, lots of Big Law firms like to use itsy-bitsy type for their Web sites. This is odd, because tiny type — hard as it is to read — tends to repel, rather than attract, readers.

Why would any publisher (law firm or otherwise) do such a thing?

Consider the intro to Winstead’s IP practice description:

Compare the above to the intro to Thelen Reid’s IP practice description:

It’s no contest. Thelen Reid’s copy is much easier to read than Winstead’s.

Sure, anyone wanting to read copy at Winstead’s site can crank up the type size in their browser (and then crank it back down when they go to another site), but why make anyone go through the effort?

Here’s a tip to all the Big Law firms that use tiny type: consider your readers, and what’s most convenient for them.

An interesting article in the latest issue of Construction Law. Written by Michael Mendelblat and David Nitek of Herbert Smith, the article — “Plain words please courts” — is great reading for anyone involved in the language of agreements.

A snippet:

The court decided that the claimant’s interpretation was correct since it focussed on the plain meaning of the words in the construction contract.

Consider the following snippet from a newsletter recently published by a Big Law firm:

Consider the first sentence under the head:

Companies and individuals are becoming increasingly conscious of their carbon footprint—a measure of carbon dioxide emissions, which are believed to contribute to global warming, attributable to their activities.

And note the use of a single em dash to set off the parenthetical expression (i.e., a measure of carbon dioxide emissions, which are believed to contribute to global warming).

The problem here is that an editor didn’t bother to review this newsletter before it was published. Had an editor reviewed this, an old rule would surely have been applied: one to separate; two to enclose.

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I just discovered this article published by the San Francisco Daily Journal and authored by Frederick Lowell, a partner with Pillsbury Winthrop.

I think it has some fabulous ingredients. It’s interesting and it’s persuasive. It starts out very slow, but it’s got a terrific ending:

It’s time to start again. Government regulation needs to get out of the way of
political reality. Politics should be left to the people.

This is Great Material for an editor to work with. Why . . . an hour or two with this, and I’m sure it could win awards.

If you’ve never seen it, or you haven’t seen it for a while, check out Linex Legal, “the leading online information portal for the legal profession.”

The top of the home page (i.e., the first thing readers will see) is a quote — an impressive looking endorsement.

Here’s the quote:

“Linex Legal is a terrific one stop shop for all the information I need on a daily basis with a wide range of useful information that is easy to find.”
– Maria Lakio, Legal Affairs Manager, Amercian Express

This is a great service for in-house counsel, especially when shopping for new outside counsel. It makes it easy to compare publications from different firms on a certain topic, or range of topics.

And that’s a good way to see what a firm has to offer.

If your firm’s attorneys write interesting things about things of interest to prospective clients (e.g., proposed legislation, rule changes, court decisions), then you’ll want their pieces to be available through Linex Legal.

You’re an attorney, and most of what you write is read by few. But, you’ve been asked to write a client alert for your firm. Some court issued an important ruling, and it’s up to you to explain what it could mean for some of your firm’s clients (and many of its prospective clients).

You could write the alert the way you usually write, but that probably wouldn’t do much good.

Here’s why: when you write a brief or a memo or part of an agreement — when you write whatever you usually write — your audience is set. You’re not trying to attract a bigger audience. But when you write a client alert, your big goal is (or should be) to attract a bigger audience: the more the better.

The people you’re trying to attract (e.g., prospective clients and those who can influence them) are busy people. Like you, they don’t like to waste time, but they do like to learn about things they consider important. And they know that your firm isn’t the only one to issue a client alert about that important ruling. They have options.

Here’s something you can do to help attract and retain readers: cut unnecessary words; take long, drawn-out phrases, and reduce them to their essence; be as brief as can be; don’t use 300 words to say what could be better said in 100 words.

The following samples are from client alerts published by Big Law firms. In each case, we reduce the word count by at least 10%. We do something else, as well — something even more important than being concise. Can you tell what it is?

Original Copy (42 words):

Goodyear argued that each time Ms. Ledbetter was given a smaller raise than comparable men was when the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred and that no such action had occurred within the 180 days prior to the date she filed her charge.

Revised Copy (33 words):

According to Goodyear, the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred when Ms. Ledbetter was given a smaller raise than comparable men, and that had not occurred within 180 days before she filed her charge.

Original Copy (39 words):

Ledbetter alleged that for years several supervisors had given her poor evaluations because she was a woman and, as a result, her pay had not increased as much as her male counterparts, resulting in significant pay disparities over time.

Revised Copy (33 words):

Ledbetter alleged that several supervisors gave her poor evaluations just because she was a woman, and that this went on for years, making her salary significantly less than that of her male counterparts.

Original Copy (59 words):

Ledbetter argued that the paychecks that were issued to her during the EEOC charging period, the 180-day period preceding the filing of her EEOC questionnaire, were each a separate act of discrimination, claiming that the paychecks were unlawful because they would have been larger if she had been evaluated in a nondiscriminatory manner prior to the EEOC charging period.

Revised Copy: (51 words)

Ledbetter argued that, during the 180-day period before she filed her EEOC questionnaire, each paycheck issued to her was a separate act of discrimination. She claimed that those paychecks were unlawful because they would have been larger if she had been evaluated in a nondiscriminatory manner before the EEOC charging period.

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Now, you might think that all we’ve done is reduce the word count by at least 10% in each of the above examples. But, we’ve done much more than that. In each case, we’ve made the copy easier to read, as well. And that’s a key element of writing for readers.

You’re writing a client alert about something or other, and your goal is this: to promote yourself and your firm. Obviously, the alert can’t achieve your goal if people don’t read it.

To get people (e.g., prospective clients) to read the alert, you need to give it a good, solid opening. Without that, your alert will go unread. People will read the opening, and then move on to something else. You will have wasted your time writing it and – if the opening is very poorly done – the alert can do more harm than good. It can drive people away from you and your firm. It can leave them with the impression that your firm is just joking about its commitment to excellence.

To be effective, the opening to a client alert needs to:
1. Clearly explain what the alert is about.
2. Be well written.
3. Be interesting.

Let’s take a look at the opening of an alert written by two senior attorneys at a Big Law firm. Here it is:

A growing number of agri-food companies in the global food supply chain are adopting agriculture sustainability standards. These companies include seed suppliers, producers, processors, distributors, restaurants, and supermarkets. The reasons for this movement are complex. Factors include an emerging business interest in corporate social responsibility, consumer demand, and a growing awareness of all that is involved in the making of a food product. Whatever the reasons, agri-food companies publish agriculture sustainability standards in a variety of venues: marketing materials, advertisements, reports, and company websites. These publications range from simple statements of commitment to glossy, sophisticated statements buttressed by matrixes, score cards, and performance indicators.

Agriculture sustainability standards in these speech venues create legal risks for the agri-food company. These risks make it imperative for the agri-food company to seek legal counsel from a lawyer with an expertise in the substantive law underlying these risks and in the legal, policy, and business contexts of production agriculture and the global food supply chain.

Now, let’s see the opening after an editor has touched it. Here it is:

A growing number of agri-food companies – including seed suppliers, producers, processors, distributors, restaurants, and supermarkets – are adopting agricultural sustainability standards. Their reasons are varied, but typically include a growing interest in corporate social responsibility, and increased public awareness of all that is involved in the making of a food product.

Whatever their reasons, agri-food companies often state their sustainability standards in brochures, TV and magazine ads, industry reports, white papers, and corporate Web sites. The statements range from catchy one-liners to sophisticated arguments buttressed by matrices, score cards, and performance indicators.

Whether short or long, these statements carry significant risks for the companies that make them. Hence, it is imperative that these companies seek counsel from lawyers who have expertise in the substantive law, as well as the legal, political, and business concerns affecting the global food supply chain.

Now, suppose you’re counsel for some big food company, you’re looking for information on sustainability standards, and you find this alert. Are you more likely to continue reading the unedited version, or the edited version?

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