Opening Statements
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?
