Legal Writing

Friday Morning Quickie

One of the things I do is respond to emergencies. A newsletter has to go to the printer, or a proposal has to be submitted by the end of the day, and I’m called in to drop everything else to make sure the author or the publisher or both look their best.

I might be asked to edit an issue of a firm’s Federal Circuit Patent Decision Summaries that begins with this intro:

If a defendant, which seeks to defeat jurisdiction, has purposefully directed its activities at a particular forum, it must present a compelling case that the presence of some other considerations would render jurisdiction unreasonable.

I put everything else aside and set to work.

One-third of a minute later, the intro is transformed like so:

If a defendant seeking to defeat jurisdiction has purposefully directed its activities at a particular forum, it must present a compelling case that the presence of some other considerations would render jurisdiction unreasonable.

Why make a few small changes to the intro?

To please readers, to make the author look his best, to promote the publisher, and to promote my good reputation for doing excellent work promptly (and at reasonable cost).

Full post as published by Set in Style on May 21, 2010 (boomark / email).