Typography for Lawyers
After reading about Matthew Butterick's new book, Typography for Lawyers, on the Appellate Record, I picked up a copy. You should, too.
The book is outstanding. I can't say enough good things about it. If you want to get a flavor for Butterick's work, check out his website. It's loaded with helpful tips and examples.
Butterick's basic premise is that lawyers are professional writers, and proper document design is part of effective writing. As he puts it, good typography helps conserve reader attention. The typography typically found in legal documents, by contrast, does . . . something else.
The common formatting of legal documents is a holdover from the time when people used typewriters and couldn't do any better than underlining, double-spacing, using capital letters for emphasis, etc. Those techniques are lazy; they make things easier on the writer, not the reader. They are therefore counterproductive.
Put slightly differently, formatting your document to look like it just rolled off a Selectric undermines all of the hard work that you have put into your writing.
That's the basic idea. There is far too much great stuff in Butterick to even try to summarize it here.
Instead, I will just prove to you that Butterick's stuff works and leave it to you to read his book or check his website for further edification.
How will I do that?
By plagiarism reference. In a legal writing nerdgasm, Kendall Gray took an opinion from the Supreme Court of Texas and shipped if off to Butterick for his review and improvement.
Here is the original document.
Here is the Buttericked version.
The difference isn't subtle. One looks like a college term paper. The other looks like a professionally designed document.
If you would like a detailed explanation of how that worked, check out Kendall's blog. (Actually, you should do that anyway. It's really well done.) Butterick lays out the steps. It helps to know words like "kerning" before trying to read this.
If you would like to skip the explanation and learn how to do this yourself, go here.
Could we get Butterick to do the same thing to a SCOVA brief or opinion?
Doubtful. I hate Rule 5:6 more than anyone. Double-spaced 14-point Arial makes my eyes hurt and my heart sad. But after reading his book, I'm pretty sure that seeing a document set up that way would kill a part of Butterick's soul.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Seventh Circuit's advice on typography (http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/Rules/type.pdf), which I've always tried to employ, incorporates most of Butterick's suggestions. From looking at the "Buttericked" brief, it appears the lesson is plain: use the typography already employed by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Solicitor General. Which would be easy if all courts allowed it.
We'll have to respectfully disagree on that point. While the Seventh Circuit guidelines are generally pretty good, they do not approach TFL's level or detail or utility. And in fairness to Butterick, he did a lot more than try to mimic the typography of a SCOTUS slip opinion.
"I hate Rule 5:6 more than anyone."
I'm not so sure about that. I think you have a lot of competition -- except for those at 100 N 9th St.
And let's be fair, it's only subsection (a)(2) that's terrible.
I stand by my statement as written. (And Rule 5:6(a)(3), while not quite terrible, has its problems).
Do you know the story behind this rule? No one has ever explained to me where it came from, or why. It's just a very odd choice. To begin with, Arial, Courier, and Verdana are hideous. Blocks of double-spaced text in those fonts at 14 point are not particularly easy to read. And for the cynics who think it's just a back-door way to reduce brief length, Arial doesn't even take up that much space.
Wow, thanks for the props on the blog and the nerdgasm. I heartily agree with your recommendation of Butterick's book and your hatred of all rule-mandated ugliness.
Someone commented awhile back on my blog that maybe what we need to do is submit what I'll call "reader friendly" courtesy copies of our briefs the the courts--as if to say, "but for your ridiculous rules, here is the beautiful, short, easy to read brief I would be able to file."
I don't think Butterick mimicks SCOTUS typeography -- I think Butterick and SCOTUS each independently analyzed what makes for good typeography, and came to the same conclusions. That confirms that the suggestions are good.