📚✨ Discover the 11 Deadly Sins of Legal Writing! 🚨📝
Sixth sin: By not writing “to the point,” we create unnecessarily long texts.
Author: Andrés Felipe Rivas
in collaboration with WOW Legal Experience and Copernico
Today, we delve into the sixth sin of legal writing: writing “backwards.” This practice of postponing the subject until the end of the sentence or paragraph results in unnecessarily long and difficult-to-understand texts.
Lawyers face many challenges when writing. As we have seen in the series of cardinal sins, this leads to disconnection on the part of the reader or a lack of understanding of the text. Another of these challenges that Diego Lopez has identified is that lawyers do not write “backwards.” This makes texts unnecessarily long .
When the professor says that we do not write “backwards,” he means that we stop using the following structure in our texts: Subject + Verb + Predicate. Due to some widespread confusion, we leave the subject in the middle or at the end of the paragraph. As a consequence, the text loses its strength when the central idea is postponed.
In practice, this looks like we want to leave the suspense for the end of our texts and create a kind of strategic plot to finish off our argument, “the final blow.” However, this way of writing is not strategic or efficient. When the central idea is postponed (to a place other than the beginning of the text), the reader gets tired. Their comprehension weakens after reading hundreds of words without reaching the concrete, what needs to be said.
Therefore, writing “backwards” implies an act of self-reflection so that we understand the impact on the reader, for example:
📌Convincing the judge. This could mean ruling in our favor or in favor of our client.
📌Simplifying the understanding for a client to make a decision. Do you want a recommendation? Let’s value their time by being specific.
📌Teaching or giving feedback in the workplace “backwards.” It is possible that deficient legal writing styles will be repeated.
📌Conciliating with a counterpart.
📌Convincing an administrative authority.
That’s why, together with WOW Legal Experience, we want to help you integrate this principle so that your writing has power and simplicity. We take pride in developing empathetic and creative solutions to the challenges faced in the legal and judicial context.
We’re here to offer our support in helping you transform and promote clarity in legal communication within your organization. 💼🌟
La versión en español puede encontrarse aquí: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7178699811800395776?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7178699811800395776%29
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