Writing for Readers — Being Brief for the Busy
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.
Present Perfect: If Rambus cannot convince the Commission that its findings were incorrect, then the Commission is likely to conclude that Rambus has violated European competition law.
Simple Past: If Rambus cannot convince the Commission that its findings were incorrect, then the Commission is likely to conclude that Rambus violated European competition law.
Present Perfect: Although the Commission’s SO is not public, its press release makes clear that it has found evidence that Rambus used a so-called “patent ambush.”
Simple Past: Although the Commission’s SO is not public, its press release makes clear that it found evidence that Rambus used a so-called “patent ambush.”
Present Perfect: The Commission has found that Rambus engaged in deceptive conduct during the DRAM standard setting period by keeping secret certain patents . . . .
Simple Past: The Commission found that Rambus engaged in deceptive conduct during the DRAM standard setting period by keeping secret certain patents . . . .
Present Perfect: If the Commission concludes that Rambus has violated the law, its decision could provide useful guidance for companies participating in, or using standards set by, an SSO.
Simple Past: If the Commission concludes that Rambus violated the law, its decision could provide useful guidance for companies participating in, or using standards set by, an SSO.
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Obviously, we haven’t done much to reduce the number of words in these examples. But judicious cutting doesn’t mean cutting lots of words. It means cutting all those that add nothing.
