Set in Style

Here’s how the heading for this client alert (a PDF file) appears on a computer that doesn’t have a particular font installed:

Whoever produced the alert (probably) imagined that the heading would appear like this:

Here’s how some of the body for the alert appears on that computer:

Whoever produced the alert (probably) imagined that the body would appear like this:

What went wrong? Whoever produced the alert made a common mistake. He figured that if the alert looked good on his computer, it would look good on all computers.

How to avoid such a mistake? Simple. Just embed required fonts when you create the PDF version of an alert. How? Here’s how.

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If your firm claims a commitment to excellence in all it does, don’t blow it by publishing alerts that are so far from excellent. That makes it seem as if your firm’s staff doesn’t know how to use common computer applications; they don’t pay close attention to detail; they don’t take pride in their work; and it makes the attorneys who authored the alert seem careless — as if they don’t bother to look at published versions of their work.

You’re a lawyer and you want to write about the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Act”) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), so you define some abbreviations up front. That way, when you write, “The SEC is investigating so-and-so for some violation of the Act,” people know exactly what you mean (without doing more reading than necessary).

(more…)

I just reviewed this client alert that (not which) was published by Winston & Strawn. It has some good qualities, and some not-so-good qualities.

What struck me first about this alert was the typography. While most firms make the mistake of setting body copy in a sans-serif face, Winston & Strawn’s alerts have a much more professional appearance: heads are set in a sans-serif face, and the body copy is set in a serif face.

The second thing that struck me was the complete lack of hyphenation to justify the copy. (For some reason, law firms just don’t like to justify copy the way the professional publishers do.)

The third thing that struck me was the verbiage at the bottom of the alert. To obtain the alert, I simply clicked a link at the firm’s Web site. So it seemed very odd that the verbiage offered me a way to stop receiving alerts from the firm.

Right above that verbiage was this curious comment:*

If you would like to review your contact information, please click here.

I clicked the link, and the following appeared:

We’re sorry, but something seems to have gone wrong:

The contact and event information could not be decoded.

If you got to this page by clicking on a link in an email, then the link information in the email may have been split across two lines.You may be able to copy the link from the email and paste it into your browser.

OK. The firm thinks it e-mailed the alert to me. So I did this simple test. I clicked the firm’s logotype at the top of the alert, and guess what? Nothing happened! (Had this alert been produced by pros, the logotype would link to the firm’s Web site.)

I went back to the firm’s Publications page and clicked the PDF icon for the alert, and guess what? The PDF version of the alert is an HTML file!

Just for the heck of it, I chose to view the PDF version of another alert**, and guess what? No links at all! Not even to the firm’s Web site.

Winston & Strawn’s a firm with some chutzpah: it claims it’s one of “the most technologically advanced law firms in the world.” It’s alerts say otherwise.
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* After reading this post, the good folks at Winston & Strawn got rid of that curious comment, and all the weird things that followed it. Good for them.

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** In a tribute to the days before the IBM Selectric became so popular, that alert uses underlines, rather than italics,for emphasis.

So they don’t write stuff like this:

The government has also increased its emphasis on charging individuals with FCPA violations, including seven so far this year.

or like this:

As you may have already heard or read, a Durable Power of Attorney (DPA) is a very important and beneficial document to have available, not only as you age, but at other times as well.

or this:

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.

Pullman & Comley is another firm that claims it’s got a long tradition of excellence:

Welcome to Pullman & Comley, LLC. Our firm has played an active and distinguished role in the Connecticut and New England business community since 1919. Nearly a century later, we continue the tradition of excellence instilled by our founders . . . .

But take a look at the intro to, and conclusion of, this client alert from Pullman & Comley:

Effective November 7, 2007, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security changed the rules on how to verify worker eligibility to work in this country.

The Department of Homeland Security plans not to assert violations against employers who use outdated forms during the first 30 days of the new form’s availability, that is, likely though December 6, 2007.

Regarding the intro, we know what the author meant: the changes to the rules took effect on a certain date. But that’s not what the author wrote.

The conclusion contains a misspelling and a typo (though December 6 s/b through December 26).

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Suppose a prospective client is introduced to Pullman & Comley through this alert. What do you suppose his first impression of the firm is going to be? Is he going to think the firm is serious about its “tradition of excellence?” Or is he more likely to think the firm doesn’t pay attention to detail?

NOTE: on 9 June 2008, Pullman & Comley cut that last sentence in the first paragraph of its About Us page. Let’s see what they replace it with.

In English, as in Law, there are accepted ways of doing things. If you deal in both subjects (English and Law), you should find out what those accepted ways are, and then adhere to them (unless you have one heck of a good reason for deviating from them).

Consider the following intro to this client alert:

Six federal agencies have jointly issued final rules imposing identity theft-related requirements on financial institutions, creditors, credit and debit card issuers, and users of consumer credit reports (the “Rules”).

What’s out of kilter is the hyphen in identity theft-related requirements (as well as the placement of (the “Rules”) and the lack of hyphens in credit- and debit-card issuers).

How should the phrase identity theft-related requirements be set? One good way to answer that question is to see what a reference like the Chicago Manual of Style has to say about it.

Here’s what it says:

A phrasal adjective (also called a compound modifier) is a phrase that functions as a unit to modify a noun. A phrasal adjective follows these basic rules: (1) Generally, if it is placed before a noun, you should hyphenate the phrase to avoid misdirecting the reader {dog-eat-dog competition}. . . . (6) If a phrasal adjective becomes awkward, the sentence should probably be recast.

The production editor of this alert (if you publish alerts, you do run them by a production editor before they’re published, right?) shouldn’t have missed this one at all, especially since the alert makes repeated reference to an “Identity Theft Prevention Program.”

What he or she should have done is follow the Manual’s advice to recast the sentence, perhaps like so:

Six federal agencies jointly issued final rules (the “Rules”) imposing requirements on financial institutions, creditors, credit- and debit-card issuers, and users of consumer credit reports to identify possible instances of identity theft.

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.

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.

Why run the risk of having a client ask you to explain why she’s paying big bucks for someone who is so careless about his work?

What can an editor do for a law firm?

Consider the intro to this newsletter published by a law firm that specializes in employment law:

A popular, and altruistic, employee benefit some employers provide is a leave-sharing program. An employer-sponsored leave-sharing program allows an employee to donate accrued hours of paid vacation, or personal and potentially sick leave for the benefit of other employees who are in need of taking more leave than they have available.

What’s wrong with this intro? There’s that very curious phrase: potentially sick leave. A comma is missing (right after the curious phrase). The careful reader can wonder how leave-sharing programs are so popular if they’re only offered by some employers, and every reader can wonder how a benefit can be altruistic.

What might a skilled and experienced editor do with this? Given the freedom to do a heavy edit (which is needed here), an editor could transform that intro into this:

More and more employers are offering leave-sharing programs to their employees. These programs allow employees to donate earned vacation time, as well as personal and sick days, for use by other employees who need more leave than they have earned.

Let’s consider the changes and the reasons for them.

1. The edited version contains 20% fewer words than the unedited version. (Why write who are in need of taking more leave when you could write who need more leave?)
2. The edited version is more readable than the unedited version. The edited version scores 55.4 on the Flesch Reading Ease scale; the unedited version scores 23.3.
3. The edited version is properly punctuated.
4. The edited version doesn’t claim that benefits (rather than the employers who provide them) can be altruistic.
5. That curious phrase (potentially sick leave) is gone.

That’s a good example of what an editor can do for a law firm: improve the quality of its publications.