Sentences that never seem to end create a cognitive load on the reader. The longer and more convoluted they are, the worse it gets. Legal writers, in particular, seem to have a problem with this. The solution — as you’ll see from this egregious example — is to break things down and create structure. An…
Lawyers may be verbose, but they’re precise; what they write is supposed to be unambiguous. When reading a document from a lawyer, the ambiguity typically comes, not from what’s written, but from what’s left out. For example, let’s take a look at the letter that President Trump’s lawyers wrote suggesting that he’s got no financial ties…
The New York Times published an article about Trump sexually assaulting two women. Trump threatened to sue for libel. The letter that the Times‘ lawyer sent in response really hits you smack on the forehead, because it’s so different from anything else you read in the paper. I’ll analyze. There are three kinds of things you…