Short Power
Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
--Winston Churchill
At the suggestion of a reader, I recently got 100 Ways To Improve Your Writing by Gary Provost. It was not written for lawyers, which makes it the perfect tool for improving your legal writing.
Building on the two, recent posts about my exploding cranium (here and here), the more legal something is, the less readable it becomes. So the goal of every legal writer ought to be to write like a writer--or maybe like a reader--not like a lawyer.
Provost's book is filled with useful rules and reminders to assist in that effort. For example, the first rule in the sixth chapter, "Twelve Ways to Give Your Words Power" is "Use Short Words."
Short words tend to be more powerful and less pretentious than longer words. Rape is a powerful term; sexual assault isn't. Stop is stronger than discontinue.
The quotation at the top of the post shows that this idea was not unique to Provost. Sir Winston would have agreed. And if he picked up one of your briefs:
- "Prior to" would become "before."
- "Subsequent to" would become "after"
- Phrases like "pursuant to" and "in conformity therewith" and "heretofore" and "wherefore" and "inter alia" are banished to the dust bin of all legalistic flotsam.
All Latin-derived mush should be replaced by reliably stolid, Anglo-Saxon words with heft and power.
As someone who towers at 5 foot 5, I am delighted to hear that short means power.
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What word or phrase is an alternative to "pursuant to"?
Myron, I have a bad "pursuant to" habit myself--but I am hard pressed to think of a sentence with "pursuant to" that needs to even be written.
Example: "Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56, Defendant moves for summary judgment."
Well, duh. What other rule could it be? The title of the document says "Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment." And you'll cite the rule in the standard of review section anyway.
I have a similarly bad "pursuant to" habit, but I find it comes out more often in federal court pleadings than in state. I think it has to do with my perception that I need to justify a federal judge--with his or her big, impressive courtroom and life tenure--paying attention to what I have to say. State judges get elected every few years, so they seem less remote.
So, in short, I have something of an inferiority complex when it comes to federal judges, and "pursuant to" is the box I stand on to make myself seem taller.
Well said, Iain. I daresay that many of our bad habits, from passive voice to legaleze, arise from that same source--rhetorical boxes upon which to stand. But we actually have a federal judge here in Houston that will take a red pen to one's orders if they are filled with gobbledygook. I try to pretend that I'm always writing for him.
I know exactly to which judge you refer. So far, I have escaped the wrath of his red pen. My fingers are crossed for the future.