Design the Look of Your Brief to Make It More Readable

Hardcore legal writers know the way text looks on a page affects a reader's understanding. Bryan Garner's book The Winning Brief, for example, contains eight chapters under the heading "Becoming Proficient in Designing Text."

If you don't own Garner's book, take a look at a recent article from the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors: "Painting with print: Incorporating concepts of typographic and layout design into the text of legal writing documents," by Ruth Anne Robbins (pdf).

The article includes tips like these:

• Unless required by a court, never write headings in ALL CAPS;
• Don't justify text; instead, simply align it on the left side;
• Use headings, and vary their size to indicate hierarchy.

There's a lot more in the article, plus an appendix that includes "all federal appellate and state court rules affecting typography used in briefs." (Thanks to a reader for the link.)

Comments

[Aaron]

I have worked with lawyers who get concerned when they see a heading in a brief or motion which is not in bold-face, all capitals, and underlined. One, who has a color laser printer, sometimes adds yellow highlighting to that combination for his mediation and arbitration summaries. Very pretty [cough].

[Steve]

More on justification, see this from Minor Wisdom - http://raymondpward.typepad.com/rainman2/2005/06/justify_thyself.html