Comments for Legalwriting.net Blog by Wayne Schiess

Comment on About by Kirby Griffis

Kirby Griffis — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:27:14 +0000

Wayne, I’m writing about your post “Superscript Ordinals.” I know that the Bluebook bars superscripting, but have never liked the rule. I figured it was a relic of the typewriter era, and that the rule was a concession to those who lacked the technology to superscript. Since the percentage of legal writers who can’t superscript is now very close to zero, I’d favor doing away with the rule (not that the Bluebook editors are going to ask me).

So: WHY don’t we use superscript ordinals in legal writing, other than that the Bluebook says not to?

Comment on Citation form: The Tyranny of the Inconsequential by Rudolph Metayer

Rudolph Metayer — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:11:06 +0000

It’s funny because it’s true…

Comment on Citation form: The Tyranny of the Inconsequential by Anna Trimble

Anna Trimble — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 11:55:33 +0000

Hear, hear!

Comment on Citation form: The Tyranny of the Inconsequential by Jim Covington

Jim Covington — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:10:52 +0000

Amen.

Comment on Whatcha gonna do, 1 space or 2? by Jim Allen

Jim Allen — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:29:53 +0000

To follow up on Stephen Diamond’s response, a two-space period makes worse the already abysmal job that Microsoft Word does auto-spacing justified text.

Comment on Improving your writing throughout your career, part 6 by Chris Fisanick

Chris Fisanick — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:36:25 +0000

I use all these techniques because they are great. I also use a special “line sight” ruler that covers everything but one line of printed text. And, for the really ambitious, I recommend using text-to-speech software which reads text aloud so that you can duplicate the dual-proofreaders technique that major publishing houses have used forever.

Comment on Law schools teach IRAC? by Chris Fisanick

Chris Fisanick — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:30:27 +0000

As Criminal Division Chief of a medium-sized U.S. Attorney’s office, I review every appellate brief from my office filed with the court of appeals. Members of my division know that I abhor the “mystery novel” approach to brief writing, that is, burying the conclusion. I’m not a legal writing instructor, but atter 28 years of practice and having written or reviewed hundreds of briefs, I explain to folks that courts do not have time to play “Murder She Wrote” with your brief and figure out the whodunit.

As an aside, another of my pet peeves is the use of “prior to.” Citing Garner, I always say, “If you want to write ‘prior to,’ you’d better be prepared to write ‘subsequent to’ as needed.” It makes the point that “before” and “after” are superior.

Comment on Whatcha gonna do, 1 space or 2? by Chris Fisanick

Chris Fisanick — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:16:22 +0000

Wayne,
I completely agree with everything that you’ve said to justify one space, not two. But as I pointed out to Matt Butterick, if you follow the convention of the famous TeX typsetting program (almost the de facto standard for scientific and technical articles) written by computer genius Donald Knuth, it automatically adds one-and-a-half spaces between sentences. I kind of like that.

Chris

Comment on Whatcha gonna do, 1 space or 2? by CJColucci

CJColucci — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:52:36 +0000

Another problem with the two-space approach is that it creates extra opportunities to go wrong, some of which will survive proofreading. It’s easier to stay consistent with the one-space approach.

Comment on Law schools teach IRAC? by Wayne

Wayne — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:55:08 +0000

Here is the question: “Do you really think experience teaching first-year students should be required to criticize their instruction?”

No.

But I have two comments. (1) The author isn’t just a random lawyer; the author claims to be an expert on legal writing who wrote a book on legal writing. (2) If you comment on something you’ve never done, you are taking the chance that those who have done it will say you don’t know what you’re talking about.