Set in Style

I was reviewing amicus briefs for United States v Williams when I found something interesting.

Compare the type from this brief prepared by Winston & Strawn:

To the type from this brief submitted by the American Center for Law & Justice:

It looks like Winston & Strawn — which claims to be “among the most technologically advanced law firms in the world” — doesn’t know how to set type quite right, or doesn’t care to.

Some very good advice to attorney-authors who want to be read and respected comes from Daniel Oppenheimer, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Princeton.

In his paper — “Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly,” published in the journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology — Dr. Oppenheimer reiterates what few attorney-authors can believe: readers consistently judge the writer who uses plain, clear language as more intelligent than the writer who arranges obscure terms in convoluted constructions.

And there’s some good advice for law firms that use Arial for body copy: readers judge text set in a hard-to-read face as being written by less intelligent authors.

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Professor Joseph Kimble — professor of law at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School — offers similar advice, specifically addressing the benefits to lawyers of writing for readers.

Without doubt, the client alert can be a VERY effective promotional tool, particularly for smaller firms. But only if well done.

Client alerts that aren’t well done are just a waste of time, especially for the attorneys who write them.

In this post, we examine a client alert published by a well-known law firm – one with more than 130 attorneys. We look at what could be done to make the alert more effective (e.g., get more people to mention it).

Before we get started: here’s a link to the firm’s original client alert, and here’s a link to a revision of that alert. The name of the publisher and the names of the authors have been altered. Otherwise, the original is exactly as published.

Now, let’s get started. Review the original alert. Compare it to the revised alert. I suggest you print them both.

Let’s start at the bottom. Here’s the disclaimer from the original (which appears on ALL the firm’s alerts):

Notice anything amiss? Take a look at the copyright notice at the bottom of the disclaimer. Where there should be a copyright symbol, there’s a capital ‘O’ with an acute accent. And there’s a line break between the word Copyright and that symbol.

What else? The copy is center justified.

What else? To prevent “further transmissions” the reader is advised to click “unsubscribe above.” But there is no “unsubscribe” to click. The law firm claims it’s trying to comply with “proposed Federal legislation,” but it doesn’t.

What else? The alert doesn’t bear a date of publication, but it was published four years after that “proposed Federal legislation” became law. And that law doesn’t apply to client alerts posted at law firm Web sites.

Here’s the revised disclaimer:

Let’s go to the top. Here’s the heading of the original alert:

What’s missing? The date of publication. The future reader is left to wonder, was this published last month or last year? (Fortunately, the date of the decision appears in the first line of the body. But it’s a fluke. The typical alert from this firm leaves future readers wondering whether the alert was published ten days ago, or ten years ago.)

Notice the heading. It consists of 16 words, which is a might much for a heading. Check out the first few lines of copy. Can you tell whether the decision was issued by a federal court or a state court? In other words, can the reader decide whether this alert is even relevant? (In the original, which case is being discussed isn’t mentioned until the end of the alert.)

Here’s the heading of the revised alert:

A few observations. First, the heading is down to a more palatable ten words. Also, the reader is provided with a convenient link to the opinion, and is advised that it was an appellate court in California that published the opinion.

Compare the type in the original to the type in the revision. The type in the original is set in a face designed for headings, not for body copy. The type in the revision is set in a face designed for readability. This might seem like a tiny technicality, but it’s not (i.e., pros are always have a reason why they selected this typeface or that).

Let’s make one more visual comparison of the original and the revision. Here’s the first bullet point in the original:

Here it is in the revision:

Now, this might seem like a small thing, but the difference between a quality product and a mediocre one is often the cumulative effect of a bunch of small things. (Compare a Volkswagen to a Mercedes. You can use either one to go to the store to buy a quart of milk, but one is worth far more than the other. Why?)

In the original, underlines are used. In the revision, they’re not. Big deal? No. But the use of underlines suggests that the publisher hasn’t mastered the IBM Selectric, much less the PC. When a firm uses underlines for emphasis, tick marks for quotes, and hyphens for em dashes, it suggests that either the firm doesn’t know how to set type, or it doesn’t much care about such details.

Let’s look at a few more differences between a client alert that’s been touched by an editor, and one that has not:

• Click either one of the authors’ email links in the original. Then, click an email link in the revision. Notice that, in the revision, the subject line is automatically completed. This is a convenience not only for the potential client who wants to contact an author, but for the author as well. It lends to the notion that the firm is very concerned about client service and knows its way around computers.

• The original file is 32K; the revision is half that size. The original file contains a great deal of HTML that isn’t used, and a good bit of HTML that isn’t needed.

• If you look closely, you’ll find many other small changes between the original and the revision, including changes to the copy. For instance, in the original, the abbreviation MEC is introduced in the first paragraph, but then Medical Executive Committee is used throughout the alert. (Why introduce an abbreviation if you’re not going to use it?)
  

Like I said at the top, the client alert can be a very effective promotional tool, but only if well done (i.e., touched by an editor).

There’s an old saying: “Things aren’t always as they appear.” When it comes to your law firm’s Web site, that’s something to keep in mind.

Why bother to mention it? Because I keep running into law firms that think their Web site looks just fine — and to them, maybe it does — but to others, it looks like it needs some serious attention.

Consider the following snippet of copy from a site that’s well done:

The copy is very readable, don’t you agree?

Now, consider a snippet of copy from a site that’s half baked:

Not so readable, is it?

I’m not going to get into a bunch of technical details about cascading style sheets, measures of type size, line heights, and such. I’m not even going to bother to mention that the first snippet is set in Verdana — a very good choice for body copy displayed on-line — and the second is set in Helvetica — a terrible choice for body copy presented in any manner.

What I am going to point out is that the publisher of the second snippet, unlike the publisher of the first, didn’t bother to make sure that its copy was readable on most computers (e.g., most screen sizes and resolutions, most browsers, most operating systems, etc.)

Here’s the point: when you publish hard copy, you can be sure how it looks to everyone, everywhere. When you publish a Web site, you have to take precautions to make sure your copy is readable to all. It might look just fine on all the computers your firm owns, but it might not look that way on another computer, with another operating system, and another browser, etc. You have to do some testing to have any assurance that your site looks just fine to most.

Consider a firm that claims it really understands technology. It claims it’s fantastic when it comes to e-discovery. But failing to apply due diligence to its Web site can make those claims seem downright silly.

Done properly, client alerts are a law firm’s most effective publications, not least because they give people what they want — good information about something of interest.

There’s some event, like a court ruling or new legislation. Law firm clients — some or most or all of them — are affected. They want to know what happened and what they should do, and this is a great opportunity for any firm that likes to sieze opportunities.

That takes work. You’ve got to examine the event: collect the information and analyze it. You’ve got to decide what to say, and then say it; you’ve got to write it up and lay it out and do it in good style if you want it to become popular.

That’s your goal, right? You want your client alert to be the most popular client alert of all. Isn’t that what it means to be most effective?

So let’s talk about client alerts. Let’s talk about their design.

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Here’s a snapshot of an alert that has many good qualities, including an excellent design:

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Note: to follow this discussion, download the alert (it’s a PDF file) and print it.

Compare the above design to its predecessor:

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Note: download the alert (it’s a PDF file) and print it.

How is the new design better than the old design? In quite a number of ways, including the way the body copy is set.

In the old design, readability is impaired 1) by setting the body copy in a sans-serif type and 2) putting too much space between the lines:

Those two mistakes are corrected in the new and improved design, where the copy is set much more like the copy in a newspaper or magazine:

With the new design, readability is much improved (giving the alert a more professional appearance AND better prospects for greater readership) PLUS each page can hold more copy — 30% more copy than the old design!

Now . . . compare the appearance of your firm’s most recent client alert to the two alerts mentioned above. How does it compare?

Someone sent me a copy of a law firm’s general brochure. This post discusses how the brochure could be greatly improved by applying some well-worn rules.

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Note: A real brochure is the focus of this post. I could have created a copy, or I could have hidden the name of the publisher, but then I’d be running into copyright issues.

What struck me first was the brochure’s unusual trim size: 8.5 inches tall by nearly 4 inches wide. What inspired the firm to create a brochure with such odd dimensions, I wondered.

I thumbed through the brochure, and found copy set like this:

To see what’s wrong with setting copy this way, download this PDF file. Read the paragraph in the upper left, which is set just as it is in the brochure. Then, read the paragraph in the lower right. You’ll notice that one is much easier to read than the other. There are several reasons for this.

For one, the copy in the upper left is set too tight. The lines are too close together. This makes it harder to read, and that tends to discourage readers.

If the copy had been set with a reasonable amount of leading, it would look like so (the paragraph in the upper right of the PDF file):

Just that one change makes the copy much easier to read, and that’s very significant, because that makes it much more likely that people will bother to read the brochure.

What else could be done to encourage people to take the time to read the brochure?

The copy was set in a condensed face (most likely, to stuff too much copy into not enough space). If the face weren’t condensed, the copy would be much easier to read. It would look like so (the paragraph in the lower left of the PDF file):

There’s at least one more thing that could be done to improve readability, and that’s this — set the body copy in a face with serifs. If the copy were set in a face with serifs, it might look like so (the paragraph in the lower right of the PDF file):

Compare the copy in the upper left of of the the PDF file to the copy in the lower right (shown above). Which is easier to read? Which is more likely to be read?

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We’re not quite done. Let’s consider the very unusual trim size of the brochure: 8.5 inches tall by nearly 4 inches wide.

This brochure is going to be printed on a sheet-fed press (unless the firm plans to print millions of them). Hence, it’s going to be printed on standard-size sheets. Unless the firm has money to burn, the trim size should be based on the size of those sheets. A very practical size would be 8.5 inches tall by 5.5 inches wide (i.e., a letter-size page folded in half).

Now, you may have noticed that the copy set in the serif face with leading takes up more space than the copy set in the condensed, sans-serif face without leading. Where are we going to find that extra space? Are we going to add another leaf to the brochure, thereby increasing the cost of producing it?

Heck no. We’re going to set the copy in a wider column (on a wider page) so that one page in our redesigned brochure contains just as much copy as one page in the existing brochure.

Compare these two columns of type. The left-hand column shows the copy as it was set in the odd-size brochure produced by the law firm. The right-hand column shows the copy as it might have been set if the brochure had been designed with readability, cost, and convenience in mind.

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That’s it, right? Now we’re all done.

Not quite. Once again, compare these two columns of type. Notice that the copy on the right has four paragraphs, rather than two.

Why? Because we want people to read our brochure; to encourage that, we need to make it as easy as we can for them to read it. That means breaking the copy into paragraphs, and there’s an age-old rule for doing that. As Strunk and White advised many millions of aspiring (as well as reluctant) writers:

Ordinarily . . . a subject requires subdivision into topics, each of which should be made the subject of a paragraph. The object of treating each topic in a paragraph by itself is, of course, to aid the reader. The beginning of each paragraph is a signal to [the reader] that a new step in the development of the subject has been reached.

Back to the basics for a minute. The purpose of the brochure is to attract business. It can’t do that unless people (e.g., prospective clients) take some time to read it. They’re not likely to do that if the copy is hard to read or if it’s not organized in a reasonable fashion.

To be effective, the brochure has to be very readable.

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We’re nearly done. Just three more things to notice.

Note: The rest of this discussion refers to this comparison of the printed brochure to our revision of it.

The first thing to notice is the URL in the bottom paragraph on the right. In the law firm’s version of the brochure, it’s just some type. In our revised version of the brochure, it’s a link. Click it, and a page listing the firm’s recent successes appears.

The next thing to notice is the series that makes up the bulk of that last paragraph. In the law firm’s version of it (the left-hand column), the elements of the series are not parallel. The first element has the form client followed by action. Most of the other elements do not have that form. The result is such odd constructions as:

• successful representation of nationwide construction litigation
  
• successful representation of nationwide counsel
  
• successful representation of national defense
  
• successful representation of national representation
  

Compare the law firm’s copy to the revised copy. In the revised copy, every element in the series is parallel to all the others, just as it should be.

Note: Given the importance of accurate writing in legal matters, a firm’s brochure must be free of all errors in spelling, syntax, grammar, and punctuation; else, it seems as if the firm doesn’t notice such errors or doesn’t care about them.

Finally, the beginning of the second paragraph on the right, which says the firm did something recently. This occurs again at the beginning of the last paragraph, which mentions recent succcesses. Turn to page 5 of the printed brochure, or page 6, or page 9 and you’ll find other references to what the firm did recently.

But how recent is recent? It turns out that this brochure was produced in August of 2005 — about a year and a half ago.

If your marketing materials are dated (i.e., they use terms like recently, soon, last year, next year, etc.), then you need to print the date of publication on those materials, else you run the grave risk of misleading people when your claims are no longer current.

Pick up a copy of a court’s rules. Look at the section that gives details on how to prepare a brief. Note the requirements for typesetting a brief:

• the typeface must be at least a certain size
  
• that face can contain no more than a certain number of characters per inch
  
• it must be a serif face
  
• the width of a line of type can be no greater than the specified length
  
• there must be at least some specified distance between each line of type
  
• the type must be printed in black ink on white paper
  

There are reasons for these rules.

Compare a legal brief to a book in a bookstore. Note the similarities in the appearance of the type. The body of both the brief and the book are set in a serif face, and they’re both set in lines that contain from 60 to 80 characters per line.

There are two key reasons for these similarities: legibility and readability.

Now, take a look at this client alert published by a major law firm. Notice that the body of it is set in a sans-serif face instead of a serif face. Notice the length of the lines of type, some of which contain over 100 characters.

The client alert sacrifices legibility and readability not for any good reason at all, but because the people who produced it aren’t pros.

Does it matter? Well, yes . . . if you want to look good, if you want to appear professional, if you want prospective clients to assume that you hire professionals, then it certainly does.

In our last post, we discussed some ways in which an editor can make law firm publications look more professional. Let’s continue that discussion.

The following is from a firm’s description of its antitrust and trade regulation practice:

A number of typographical problems to notice:

• Hyphens in place of dashes.
  
• Extra space after the hyphens in the second line.
  
• Loose word spacing in the third line.
  

Here’s what this might look like after an editor touches it:

The typographical problems are gone. The hyphens have been replaced with en dashes, and the first of those dashes has been set in a more appropriate place. The word spacing in the first line of the bulleted point is much improved. And that pesky dangling participle (including) has been replaced with a nice lead-in to the bullets. Finally, the United States was replaced with domestically to make the elements of the parenthetical phrase parallel (i.e, they’re both adverbs).

Take a look at a newsletter set by a professional typesetter, and you’ll find very consistent word spacing.

Take a look at the word spacing is this newsletter published by a law firm:

Notice the very loose spacing in the next to last line. For this to be set in style, that loose spacing needs to be tightened. But how?

One approach would be to add a few words to the next to last line, as shown below:

That’s an improvement, but the word spacing in that next to last line is still too loose.

Here’s what an editor might do: he might edit the copy for fit. The copy might wind up looking like this:

I can hear the gasps now. “Oh my goodness! The editor actually changed the wording of that paragraph. This is completely unacceptable.”

Most attorneys don’t want editors monkeying around with their copy. An editor could inadvertently change the meaning of some copy, and that has the potential to make the author look bad.

I dare say, it has just as much potential to make the author look good.

Let’s consider the changes. First, the title of this bulletin is “SEC Update,” and “SEC” appears in the title of this article. The audience for this article consists of people who understand such things as period-end reporting, safe harbors,and interpretive guidance. So, does it make sense to waste space explaining what SEC means? No; not at all.

This article appears in a bulletin the firm sends to its clients, but the author wrote it like a legal agreement. The editor made it look more like an article in a newsletter. In other words, the editor took steps to make the author look good.

What about (the “Release”) and (”IFCR”)? Did the editor err by deleting these? I say not. The phrase this Release serves the same purpose as (the “Release”), defining Section 404 as (”Section 404″) is absurd, and the abbreviation IFCR is better introduced closer to where it’s used.

What else did the editor do? Notice that the dependent clause and amendments to related rules has been changed to a complete sentence. This is for the convenience of the reader. Notice that the editor deleted of 2002 because he knows there’s only one Sarbannes-Oxley Act, so there’s no reason to specify which one is being discussed.

The result? The revised paragraph is shorter than the original, and this is good (because the reader doesn’t want to have to do more reading than necessary). The article reads more like an article and less like a legal agreement. And the word spacing is now much more consistent, so it looks much more professional.

In short, the editor did what he could to make the author look good.

Take a look at just about any newspaper. More than likely, the body copy is set in 10-pt Times Roman.

This isn’t a coincidence. The selection of that font is quite intentional.

Now, compare law firm Web sites. Compare a page at Thelen Reid’s site to a page at Sedgwick’s site to a page at Pillsbury Winthrop’s site.

Not much in the way of consistency, is there? The selection of fonts at most law firm Web sites seems more random than anything else.

For some reason, the body copy at very many law firm Web sites is set in a font that’s far too small for the average reader to read. (Note that the copy at Thelen Reid’s site is much easier to read than the copy at the other two sites. Apparently, whoever designed Thelen Ried’s site gave some thought to readability.)

Those responsible for the design of law firm Web sites would do well to consider the advice of those who know much about such things. They would do well to consider what Jakob Nielsen, whom the New Yawk Times called “the guru of Web page usability,” has to say about such things.