Relying On Precedent
From “DEFYING PRECEDENT: THE ARMY WRITING STYLE” authored by Major Thomas Keith Emswiler:
Why can’t lawyers, who are among the best educated in any community, write well? Why can’t law professors, who are among the best educated in the legal community, write well? The answer is reliance on precedent — the lawyer’s bread and butter. What law student hasn’t looked at a sentence such as: “Accordingly, substantive equality should be measured by equality in fact; the process must be equal but the results must also reflect the effort to remedy the effects of a century of official discrimination,” and aspired to write in a similar manner? Reliance on precedent leads to poor writing.
