Legal Writing

How to Write Stuff People Won’t Read

There are several ways to write marketing materials that save readers time, and this introduction to the firm of Bereskin & Parr LLP embodies a few of them:

Bereskin & Parr LLP is a leading Canadian intellectual property (IP) law firm serving clients of all sizes, in a variety of industries, domestic and international. The firm was founded in 1965 and has grown to be one of the largest IP law firms in Canada with four offices located in major economic or technology centers. The firm has offices in Toronto, Mississauga, Waterloo Region and Montréal. Bereskin & Parr is made up of over 70 lawyers, and patent and trade mark agents, many of whom are recognized as leading practitioners in their respective fields. The firm’s practice is comprehensive, encompassing all aspects of intellectual property, with practice groups including:

1. First, throw your readers a curve. One way to do that is to start off with a nice grammatical error, leaving readers to wonder what are ?domestic and international industries.?
2. Next, start each and every sentence with the same exact subject, like ?the firm, the firm, the firm.?
3. Take a bunch of different thoughts and stuf them into one paragraph.
4. Don’t use transitions.
5. Be sure that no sentence refers to another, and there’s no logical progression from one to the next.

It really works. If you want people to stop reading your copy right quick, be boring, boring, boring.

Full post as published by Set in Style on January 29, 2010 (boomark / email).