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In case you missed it, we here at the Appellate Record continue
to span the globe of legal writing and criticism--
The thrill of the elegant sentence
The agony of legalese . . .
(**musical interlude**) "DUH DUH DUH DUH"
Specifically, the latest Texas Lawyer includes an article of mine about
the importance of storytelling and how our bad habits as legal
writers are a huge buzz kill for a good story.
After the jump, I'll show just how widespread our bad habits
are while we take Supreme Court of Texas to the woodshed.
We lawyers have lots of bad habits and tics in our writing,
mostly picked up in law school or academia whilst trying to look
smart. The article picks on two of the habits that make
for horrible storytelling:
Excessive chronological dates (e.g., "On January 9, 2009
an event happened that you don't care about . . . .")
and
Killing all the characters (hereinafter "KATC"),
either through excessive definitions or by naming the parties with
the Mystifyingly Obtuse Acronymic Definition (hereinafter
"MOAD").
How widespread are these problems? They're everywhere.
To illustrate, I bet myself that if I picked a Supreme Court
case at random, I would find excessive chronological dating and
MOADs, notwithstanding the involvement of good lawyers and good
judges.
I was right.
I picked the first opinion on the Supreme Court's list last Friday, which just
happened to be Texas Mutual Insurance Company v.
Ruttiger. Here's what you'll find if you look
through this randomly selected case, one that got a lot of
attention because it has important issues put forward by really
good lawyers.
The Petition for Review and the Petitioners' merits brief does a pretty
good job, only a few dates involved, generally deemphasized. And
the characters have names--even "Texas Mutual" for the
insurance company.
The response defines Timothy Ruttiger
("Ruttiger") even though he's the only Ruttiger in
the case. Texas Mutual has become "TMIC." And the first
two substantive paragraphs in the fact section begin with precise
dating.
Even though the petitioner ultimately won, the Opinion adopts the MOADs and dating style
of the respondent and then amplifies them.
Many (maybe even most) of the paragraphs in the fact section of
the opinion begin with a date that does not matter. There are many
more dates throughout.
We are treated to MOADs like "TMIC" and
"WCD" and "BRC."
As I said, these are not bad lawyers or bad judges. On the
contrary, they are among the best. But that's the point. This
is how infected we lawyers really are.
To quote one really eminent (and quite dashing) authority:
Most lawyers could do with an intensive remedial course in
"Once upon a time." The longer they have practiced law,
the more they probably need it.
Now, please don't go pulling my own briefs or
you're likely to find some of the same stuff. And that would
ruin our little illusion. Nothing good could come from that.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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Going Vinny
