Set in Style

Last November, I wrote this post about an article (titled “Plain words please courts”) that appeared in Construction Law. The article was written by Michael Mendelblat and David Nitek of Herbert Smith.

Today, it’s the most popular article at Linex Legal, a clearinghouse for attorney-authored articles.

Yesterday, the New York Times ran this article by Adam Liptak about United States v. Arnold.

If the case was so interesting that the Times gave it space, then (I thought) Big Law attorneys who focus on privacy rights must be giving it a good deal of attention.

I guess I was wrong. After so much searching, all I could find was this one client alert published by Proskauer Rose.

Do you trust Word (the word processing application)? Couldn’t it be wrong about the spelling of a word? Couldn’t it make a grammatical error?

The following appeared while Word was checking grammar:

That’s one bulleted point in a list that begins with the following:

An editor can help you avoid:

The Green Bag announces its choices for Exemplary Legal Writing 2007.

Here’s a fine example of why large law firms need editors. Written by “one of the country’s most well-known art lawyers,” it discusses orphan works, copyrighted works whose owners cannot be reached:

In short what the amendment provides if a user can not find the work’s creator and they tweak the work they have cart blanc to use an artist’s work without any fees being paid even when the creating artist identifies themselves they do not even have to stop infringing.

From the same article:

The copyright office sought comments to address this issue they laid out the issue as they saw it as follows (their complete statement can be found in the Federal Register Volume 70, Number 16 or at, http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html).

Now when you catch an infringer, they know they are caught, have exposure and they will generally negotiate a settlement, if this amendment becomes law you can be sure every infringer caught will claim the work they copied had no name on it so it is an “Orphan Work” so they are not liable. Instead of coming to a compromise it will be “so sue me.”

While we strongly encourage registering you copyright for many reasons having a registration might be of little help if your name has been removed by the infringer (or earlier) because you can not search the copyright office for images.

An editor can make sure something like this isn’t published until it’s been polished. That makes the attorney look good, and it helps the firm look like it’s on top of things, that it pays attention to detail.

That’s some pretty good insurance, is it not?

Here’s a CLE seminar that’s being held in Washington, D.C. on January 11. It’s titled Advanced Effective Writing for Lawyers.

Here’s another that’s being held in Los Angeles on January 30. It’s titled Persuasive Legal Writing.

Recently, I’ve had a number of conversations about typography, and typesetting legal documents. Some (e.g., Kenneth Adams and Si Daniels) dispute the idea that serif type should always be used for body copy because it is more legible than san serif type.

The United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, has sided with the traditionalists by adopting this comprehensive set of rules for typesetting briefs.

According to the court:

Studies have shown that long passages of serif type are easier to read and comprehend than long passages of sans-serif type. The rule accordingly limits the principal sections of submissions to serif type, although sans-serif type may be used in headings and captions. This is the same approach magazines, newspapers, and commercial printers take. Look at a professionally printed brief; you will find sans-serif type confined to captions, if it is used at all.

The Supreme Court of West Virginia goes in a completely different direction with these rules:

Except by leave of Court, all pleadings and briefs, including footnotes, must be in at least 14 point type, must use Courier, Arial, or Verdana font, and only one side of the paper may be used.

Go figure!