Good writing is transparent. It disappears into the background and allows the writer’s meaning to shine through. As attorneys, in our haste to stylize language for the page, we sometimes forget about the most important component of our writing, the reader. Our goal as writers should always be to convey information to the reader in as painless a way as possible. Overwritten, contrived material only serves to hinder this process, as does underwritten, sloppy material. It takes a good deal of effort to deliver a clear, straightforward analysis. To this end, the following tips can be used to help you deliver writing to your readers that is as painless to produce as it is to consume.
(1) Play by Your Own Rules. Whether you are writing a memo, drafting a motion, or preparing a proposal, internal consistency is key. All style and usage rules should be applied consistently throughout your document. Many style rules are flexible. More often than not, it is better to be consistent than to be “right.” For example, if you decide to use a comma before “and” in a series, then go for it—every single time.
The first step is to choose your style guide. Pick one and stick with it. Flipping through multiple books or Googling indiscriminately could cause your consistency to suffer. I recommend either The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage or The Chicago Manual of Style. Both are excellent resources, and you cannot go wrong choosing either one as your primary guide.
The next step is to create your own personal style rules, and remember them. Print them on a sheet of paper, and keep them near your monitor. Apply them religiously.
(2) Use Your Time Wisely. Generally, legal writing involves the following steps: research, outline, draft, revisions, and final copy. But the process does not always flow as smoothly as we would like, and occasionally even good writers get bogged down in revisions where they lose valuable time. Many writers start out strong with a clear voice and straightforward language only to come to a grinding halt during the revision process because they have become entangled in grammatical nitpicking. Each sentence becomes a struggle, and, before long, the writer is back at the beginning making heavy-handed changes. A related problem involves a different kind of revising—meticulously improving ones writing by embellishing previously simple sentences with adverbs, adjectives, and compound phrases. Engaging in either practice causes needless anguish for the writer and does nothing to help the reader. Yes, we should always edit our work to ensure consistency, avoid grammatical errors, and improve flow, but overdoing it can be worse than doing nothing at all. Short sentences make strong points. They should be preserved. Put a time limit on your editing, and remember that clarity is the key. Give yourself the freedom to be less than perfect. If passive voice conveys your meaning clearly, go with it. Do not waste ten minutes creating an awkward construction just to use the active voice. And if you find yourself logging onto Dictionary.com or picking up a thesaurus in order to give your sentence a little something extra, think twice about whether that adjective or adverb will add clarity to your text. Chances are it will only muddy an already well-turned sentence.
(3) Avoid Blatant Errors. Nothing stops a reader faster than the wrong word tucked neatly into a sentence. While watching the evening news recently, I witnessed a weatherman’s blunder when he presented a chart with the heading: It could [of] been worse. Errors like this one shake a reader’s confidence in the writer, and legal writing is one area where lost credibility can be costly. We all have our own personal Achilles heel when it comes to grammar and usage, be it pronoun problems or words that never fail to confuse. The easiest way to avoid blatant errors is to take note of items that cause you to pause while writing, especially those that make you reach for the nearest style guide. Draft a cheat sheet of content that proves to be continuously problematic, and keep it close at hand.
Five Steps to Improve Your Legal Writing