Legal Writing

Why Lawyers Need Editors

Lawyers need editors for this reason: they’re authors. They write client alerts, newsletter articles, and seminar materials published by their firms, and by-lined articles published by others. Some maintain blogs.

Lawyers need editors for this reason too: they’re human. Not only are they capable of error, but they’re susceptible to an occupational hazard. Since they spend so much time writing legal matter and so little time writing promotional matter (e.g., client alerts), they tend to approach the latter just like the former.

The result is promotional material that’s written like a legal brief ? it’s overly formal, far too wordy, and much more difficult to parse than it should be (especially when the target audience includes not only corporate counselors, but those who influence them, and others*).

Here’s a quick example. Consider the following intro to a client alert written by an attorney without an editor:

On September 22, 2009, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (?EPA?) promulgated its long awaited final rule (?Rule?) that imposes a mandatory national system for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas (?GHGs?) emissions.¹ The Rule enables EPA to collect comprehensive, economy-wide GHG emissions data that can be analyzed on both geographic
and facility-specific levels.

Compare that to this intro to a client written by the same attorney with an editor:

On Monday, the EPA issued a final ruling that greenhouse gases posed a danger to human health and the environment. The ruling paves the way for a national system for regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

What’s different, and why?

______
* To attract journalists looking for quotes, the intro has to satisfy a very broad audience.

Full post as published by Set in Style on January 07, 2010 (boomark / email).