Legal Writing

Why Attorneys Need Editors

Consider this statement from a draft of an article authored by an attorney:

?Business associates? are individuals or entities that provide services for covered entities needing access to protected health information.

What we have here is an example of the misplaced modifier.

The modifier — needing access to protected health information — is supposed to business associates, but it’s too far away.

Where it is, it reads like it modifies covered entities.

When things wind up the in wrong place.

If the attorney/author was a stalwart practitioner of due diligence, she’d do what authors typically do: she’d submit her copy to an editor for review.

Had she done that, the intro could have turned out like so:

?Business associates? are individuals who, or entities that, 1) provide services for covered health care providers and 2) need access to protected health information.

People would have thought the better of her as a result.

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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
– Benjamin Franklin

Full post as published by Set in Style on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).