Set in Style

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.

Let’s suppose you want to file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. Then you’ve got a strict limit — you have to set your case in less than 882 square inches using nothing finer than Times Roman, set 11 on 13.

And let’s suppose that you can’t meet this limit without omitting something you really want the court to consider.

Then consider this — a competent typesetter can buy you an additonal page or two!

How? By doing the things that typesetters normally do:

• by setting the copy in a professional typesetting program (rather than Microsoft Word).
  
• by using hyphens to break the ends of fully justified lines.
  
• by using modern, rather than French, spacing.
  

And consider this — a good editor can save you an additional page or two or three or four!

How? By doing what editors do commonly do, like:

changing this:

“The Regulations provide sample notices, which, after appropriate individualized revisions, plan administrators can use to meet certain of their legal obligations.”

to this:

“The regulations provide sample notices that group health plan administrators can customize.”

or changing this:

“The County sent an inspector who made observations as to the condition of the sidewalk and concluded that it was uneven.”

to this:

“A county inspector examined the sidewalk and concluded it was uneven.”

or changing this:

“Provide notice to an employee and his or her spouse concerning their rights under COBRA within 90 days after “coverage under the plan commences.”

to this:

“Notify employees and their spouses of their rights under COBRA within 90 days after “coverage under the plan commences.”

A good editor who knows how to set type can get you (typically) two to six additional pages worth of copy for a 30-page brief.

French spacing (e.g., setting two spaces, rather than one, after a period) is not a distinctly French phenomenon. More accurately, it’s old-fashioned, and neither the French, nor the English, nor us Yanks, do it anymore. Just pick up a copy of Le Monde and see how it’s set. The spaces between sentences are no greater than the spaces between words.

There are plenty of differences between the way copy is set in France and the way it’s set in the U.S.

In France:

• Proper adjectives — like french and english and american — are set down, rather than up.

• 2:30 pm is set 14h30.

• June 23, 1975 is set 23 juin 1975.

• 75% is set 75 %.

• Punctuation is set after a closing quote, rather than before.

• « Guillemets are often used in place of English quotation marks. »

There are plenty of other differences, some of which involve the spacing around punctuation. For instance, thin spaces separate guillemets from the text they enclose, and spaces are set before question marks, exclamation marks, and colons.

An article published by a Canadian law firm is set one way in French and another way in English. Despite all the little differences, note that even the French don’t use French spacing at the end of a sentence; even French lawyers don’t do it!

But French lawyers do have this in common with their Yankee counterparts — they don’t bother to hyphenate fully justified copy (and they do use Microsoft Word to set final copy).

While a computer is not an old typewriter, most law firms do their best to make it seem so. They use tick marks for quotes, hypens for dashes, and underlines for emphasis. They put two spaces after a full stop, and they set subscripts and superscripts on baseline. They use headline type for body copy. They fully justify everything they can, but they do it without hyphenation. To top it all off, they use Microsoft Word to set final copy.

Take a look at the copy at most any law firm’s Web site, and compare that to the copy at a newspaper’s Web site.

The copy at the newspaper’s Web site looks quite a bit different than the copy at the law firm’s Web site. The newspaper uses a serif typeface for the body copy; the law firm uses a sans-serif face, such as Arial (i.e., a face designed for heads, not body copy). The newspaper uses quotes and apostrophes; the law firm uses tick marks. The newspaper uses en dashes, and the law firm uses hyphens. The spacing between the words in the newspaper is very uniform; the spacing between the words in the law firm’s copy is not.

Does it matter? Sure it does, especially when the law firm claims that it’s expert in the use of computer technology, and that it “strives for excellence” in all it does.

Here are some sources of information on how to set copy like the pros:

A Practical Guide to Web Typography

Designorati: Typography

Typographica. A Journal of Typography

InDesign Type: Professional Typography

Law firms are publishers. They publish briefs, brochures, newsletters, client alerts, practice area descriptions — they publish lots of stuff. But their publications say they’re not pros. Just look at how law firms set type, and you can see that many don’t know how.

While law firms are notorious for their lack of typesetting skills, professional publishers are not; they know how to set type.

The next time you’re in a book store, take a look at the new releases. In particular, look at casebound books published by established houses, like Viking, or Harper, or Random House, or Doubleday.

Grab a good book, and then look at its table of contents. Notice the heading. In a book published by a pro, “Table of Contents” is not the heading of the table of contents. That heading is used by amateurs, by young editors who haven’t had a good education, and by law firms — but not by professional publishers.

Turn to a page inside the book. Take a look at how the copy is set. Notice the uniformity of the spaces between the words and at the end of sentences. There is very little variation in size.

Now look at a legal brief, or a law review article, or a law firm’s practice area descriptions. Notice how the spacing between words varies from one line to the next. Notice how an extra space is added to the end of each sentence. Set a law review article and a magazine article side by side and compare the two. Notice the substantial difference in how the two are set. One is set by a pro; the other is not.

Does it matter? Yes, it certainly does.

And, if you care, stay tuned.

Compare a law review article to a magazine article. Go get one of each, set the two side by side, and examine the copy.

Among the differences between the two is this: the spaces between the words in the magazine article are much more uniform.

Does that matter?

Yes, it does.

One of the things we’ll be discussing (comments are welcome) in this blog is how to set copy in good style. If you’re an attorney and you care about style, you’ll be very interested in this discussion.

Is appearance important?

You bet it is.

Click this link to see a page from a famous book, a book set by a famous typesetter — Johannes Gutenberg.

Notice the uniformity of the spaces between the words in Gutenberg’s Bible. Unlike a modern law review article, the space at the end of a sentence is no greater than the space between two words.

The Gutenberg Bible is set in good style. The law review article is not.

Now . . . if you suppose the average attorney knows how to set type better than the most famous typesetter, find another blog. This one is going to be a waste of your time. But if want your copy to look sharp, stick around. We’re going to look at some ways to make that happen.