Legal Writing

Help for Obese Attorneys — Less Is More

Formality ? it’s honored by so many legal writing instructors and senior partners, and detested by people (e.g., judges and shoppers) who need to read what attorneys write.

Verbosity is much like formality. It’s easy to conquer.

Consider the intro to this article (by Thomas L. McLain of AirWatch) about the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976:

The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act requires notifications to be filed prior to the completion of a merger or acquisition when certain transaction size limits are met. The filing allows regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to analyze the anti-competitive effect of the deal.

Why not save readers (people who want to learn about the act [or about the author]) some time and effort by losing the formality and cutting the fat?

Now, anyone who wants to know about the Act can go to Wikipedia and read all about it, or can read the Act, or McClain’s Basic Overview of it.

Why would anyone who wants to know about the Act turn to McClain’s Basic Overview of it, rather than Wikipedia?

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Consider the phrase requires notifications to be filed. Do you know where the author got that?

Why, he got it from the Act, which is chock full of legalese like these:

file notification under this subsection, shall file notification pursuant to, completed notification required, if such notification is not completed, shall require that the notification required, a person required to file notification, comply with the notification requirement, with such notification requirement

Note the repeated use of a five-syllable noun (notification) in place of a three-syllable verb (notify).

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Consider the phrase prior to the completion of. Do you know what that means? It means eight syllables rather than two (before).

Or consider the phrase when certain transaction size limits are met. How many syllables could that be reduced to?

Look . . . syllables take time. If you can pack a whole bunch of syllables into just a few, you can save readers time, which is something they tend to value.

OK. So what would a skilled an experienced editor do with McClain’s intro to make McClain look as good in print as I’m sure he does at work?

Perhaps this:

The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act requires that parties planning certain mergers and acquisitions notify the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice so regulators can analyze those deals for anti-competitive effects.

How about that?

Words and syllables cut by one third.

Ditto for the amount of time it takes to read the intro.

Full post as published by Set in Style on July 13, 2010 (boomark / email).