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"I'm a real nitpicker"

The senior partner asked me to have the agreed order retyped, verbatim, in our firm's preferred format. Opposing counsel had sent over an agreed order, and we were fine with its wording. But the senior partner wanted it to look like our document. "Have it retyped and then take it over to opposing counsel for his signature," he told me.

I walked into the opposing counsel's office and handed him the retyped order, assuring him that we had made no changes to the wording--except that we had added an apostrophe in one place where it was needed.

"I missed an apostrophe?" he asked. "Are you sure? That's surprising because I'm a real nitpicker," he said.

I handed him the original, and he verified that he had, indeed, missed an apostrophe.

I tell this story with due humility because I'm not a real nitpicker. I make mistakes, and I tolerate my own and others' mistakes--to a point.

Full post as published by Legalwriting.net on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).