Writing habits Archives - Page 3 of 14

Which courts receive the simplest arguments?

Court documents, Sentence length, Word choice

An American lawyer has analysed 600 appellant briefs written for three courts in the USA. He found that the simplest writing style appeared in briefs written for the US Supreme Court, even though the court decides complex questions. Average sentence length and use of...

Interpreting “devise” and “bequeath”

Wills, Word choice

In the past, wills would “devise” land and “bequeath” personal property. This distinction could cause trouble if someone unaware of it used the words incorrectly, or wordiness if they used both unnecessarily. The word “give” does not raise these difficulties. The Law...

Gender-neutral building contracts

Contract drafting, Gender-neutral writing

In June 2014, we had a Clarity breakfast on the NEC set of building contracts, then in its 3rd edition, first drafted in 1991 in non-legal language. In the discussion, Justin Mort QC asked why, since most parties to these contracts are companies, the contracts still...

$10 million dispute for want of a comma

Judgments, Legislation, Punctuation

Opinions differ on the value of adding a comma to remove ambiguity in sentences such as this: “I would like to thank my parents, Mother Teresa and the pope”. The Maine Legislative Drafting Manual advised against the comma. But one law that followed the advice remained...

The jargon of bell ringing

Jargon

As I’ve been learning to ring church bells, I’ve also been learning the jargon. As my beginners’ guide warns me, “Not only do [ringers] use some special words, but they also use ordinary words with special meanings, and they sometimes use several different words for...

How to write contracts

Contract drafting, Grammar, Judgments

A poorly-drafted contract gave rise to arguments that shouldn’t have been available. Its defects included: An incoherent scheme of overlapping triggers for undoing the sale of development land, if planning and highways conditions were not met. A clause beginning...