7 ms·

Typography for Lawyers, 2nd Edition (2018)

98 points by notpushkin 4y ago

jamesliudotcc 4y ago
Matthew Butterick is also the author of Beautiful Racket https://beautifulracket.com/ https://beautifulracket.com/ and several fonts https://practicaltypography.com/mb-fonts.html https://practicaltypography.com/mb-fonts.html. As an ex-lawyer turned coder and one-time type setter for a school paper, I can only marvel at his accomplishments.
- mark_l_watson 4y ago
  I saw him present one time, perhaps it was RacketFest (Racket programming get together with lots of demos). He does a lot of creative project and his Racket books look good. Few things are better than someone having a personal need for something (in his case his own typesetting and publishing tools), builds the tools, then writes books about it.
- JHonaker 4y ago
  My favorite thing he’s doing right now is suing GitHub/Microsoft for blatantly violating almost all the licenses on their hosted code for GPT. https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com/ https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com/ I’m also an enormous fan of his book, Beautiful Racket. It’s what set me off on the path of being a self-identified Scheme programmer.
hkhanna 4y ago
My company, Magistrate [0], has elements that are heavily inspired by this book! Legal documents should be written in plain text, not Microsoft Word. Then, typographical conventions from books like this one can be enforced at the editor level with linters and autoformatters. Lawyers spend way too much time and money on formatting Microsoft Word documents. How much unnecessary effort could be saved if we had black (the python package) for legal documents? Uncompromising formatting and typography for legal documents would go along way to eliminating the bikeshedding that lawyers do around useless formatting. If this is the kind of thing that interests you, please reach out! [0] https://getmagistrate.com/ https://getmagistrate.com/
- bavila 4y ago
  Have you found it to be problematic that some (perhaps many) lawyers like bikeshedding in Word, as it gives them an excuse to pad their billable hours?
  - hkhanna 4y ago
    Only to the extent we market to folks who bill by the hour. But there are lots of people who work with legal documents who don't bill by the hour, and that's the target market for now.
  - Digory 4y ago
    It isn’t padding. It’s judges. If your lawyer can lose a case over formatting (and they can), your lawyer can get sued for malpractice for screwing up formatting. Why do judges insist on arcane, high level published documents? Judges benefit from repeat players — the formatting helps them routinize their analysis and spot the careless lawyer, or the one unfamiliar with local law. It’s an effective filter of the arguments.
    - bavila 4y ago
      > If your lawyer can lose a case over formatting (and they can)... It's true that there are certain typographical requirements that must be met in certain court filings, but I have also seen lawyers bikeshed in Word by obsessing over things as menial as left vs. justified text alignment (and then even decide how to rephrase language after changing to justified alignment because they don't like the rivers[1] they are now seeing). Unless such requirements are codified in court rules, then it is not something that would win/lose a case, and it is just a billable-hour timesink. > Why do judges insist on arcane, high level published documents? Judges benefit from repeat players... You may be giving them too much credit in their cunning. It's just easier and more efficient to navigate a complex system when we're all operating off of the same framework -- no different than programming. I've worked as a law clerk and attorney, and, yes, judges will have their biases as to which attorneys they are more likely to trust than others, but that occurs through building actual rapport in court, not by following formatting rules. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(typography) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(typography)
emadabdulrahim 4y ago
This is where I learned some of the fundamentals of Typography. I'm a design engineer by trade. Highly recommend.
gorgoiler 4y ago
Why do the headings not start with capital letters?
sosull 4y ago
I've spent years admiring his work as a type designer. It's vexing work to create a serif that's versatile enough to compete with the simplicity and legibility of standard office-type fonts. I think he pulled the rabbit out of the hat with the Equity font. It's intended for lawyers, IANAL, but it's genuinely useful in a much bigger mixture of situations.
wizardforhire 4y ago
I’m sure the information in this article is close to canon, as the usual suspects of fonts get mentioned and from the start they seem to be hitting the basics… However, for a self prophesied typography article on the web when viewed on a mobile device this is humorously unbearable to look at.
tiahura 4y ago
This lawyer says “bleh.” Two spaces after a sentence make paragraphs easier to parse.
- dctoedt 4y ago
  > Two spaces after a sentence make paragraphs easier to parse. Correct. Most readers of any legal document have zero interest in sipping and savoring each word as if the document were a fine wine. Readers want to learn — as quickly as possible — "what do I need to care about," and then move on to the next item on their to-do lists. Two spaces after a sentence help the reader do that (as do short, single-subject paragraphs).
- philderbeast 4y ago
  sounds like your stuck in the past, two spaces after a paragraph has been a dead convention for years by this point.
  - dctoedt 4y ago
    > two spaces after a paragraph has been a dead convention for years by this point. It's "a dead convention" among people who care about the aesthetic pleasure that they get from the visual beauty of the paragraph and who don't like the "ugliness" of the extra spacing. People who care more about serving the reader are less dogmatic about two spaces after a sentence, and even prefer it for legal documents, because two spaces makes it easier for a skimmer to jump from sentence to sentence.
    - Blahah 4y ago
      That's a styling issue, not to be solved by typing two spaces unless you're using a typewriter. Just adjust the size of a space to the appropriate size when the text is rendered for the reader (in a word processor for example).
      - dctoedt 4y ago
        > Just adjust the size of a space to the appropriate size That would work IF the rendering engine knew it was supposed to use a horizontally-larger space at the end of a sentence (comparable to the CSS styling element "padding-right"). A uniformly-larger space would defeat the purpose, namely to make it easier to spot the end of the sentence through the extra space after it.
i_am_proteus 4y ago
The author is also one of the lawyers bringing suit against (Microsoft) Github Copilot.[2] [2]https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/ https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/
kderbyma 4y ago
I cofounded a company years ago with a bunch of people around the core concept of 'Legal is Code'. Had a falling out with my cofounders but the company is still going.
nathell 4y ago
I just noticed that it overlaps with „Practical Typography” (https://practicaltypography.com/ https://practicaltypography.com/) to a large extent. So much so that I’d consider them two flavours of the same book, rather than two separate ones. Also, if you liked the book and feel that you got value out of it, please pay for it – if only to support the experiment in Web self-publishing that it is. I’ve procrastinated it for far too long, but finally bit the bullet, and touched on it here: https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/ https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/
bitwize 4y ago
Legal typography is persnickety and its own kind of weird. There are courts in the USA that have very specific rules, including odd paper dimensions and font sizes, that need to be observed when filing with them. To my knowledge these serve mainly as brown M&M clauses to ensure that the lawyers filing in these courts are paying attention.
sudobash1 4y ago
I found the most interesting section to be on the copyright status of fonts: https://typographyforlawyers.com/the-copyright-status-of-fonts.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/the-copyright-status-of-fon... It describes how there is some debate as to whether or not fonts can be copyrighted, and it ends with: > Fonts are digital files, and like every other digital file, the internet will happily provide you a free copy. Yet the font business—completely opposite to the music business in this regard—has continued to grow and thrive in the internet era. Therefore, the font business must be based on something closer to the honor system. It remains an unusual counterexample to the idea that digital rights management and litigation are indispensable tools in intellectual-property economies.
stuntkite 4y ago
One time I cofounded a legal deposition application that would compile transcripts and exhibits for submissions to the court. We also did auto transcription and time stamping. It was this whole thing and is gone now. Anyway, The submission requirements vary WILDLY region to region. The typography and margin constraints as well as occasional weird other features like in one county (parish?) in Louisiana it had to be filed bound with a yellow ribbon or something like that. How much time I spent with weird minutia of legal typesetting, this book seems like a great and interesting read.
rayiner 4y ago
Some of this is quite controversial. On some controversial points I think he's wrong, e.g. font size. https://typographyforlawyers.com/point-size.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/point-size.html. The federal appellate courts require at least 14 points, and the Supreme Court requires at least 13 points. Magazines may use smaller fonts, but (1) printing costs matter a lot more in that industry; and (2) the average age of the federal judiciary is a lot older than the average age of most magazine readers. On other controversial points, I think he's right, e.g. one space between sentences: https://typographyforlawyers.com/one-space-between-sentences.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/one-space-between-sentences.... But I'll probably never be edgy enough to do that.
joegahona 4y ago
Garner has an epic grammar/usage book that I used years ago when I was a copy editor. Anyone who's in the uphill crusade to rid legal text of all-caps is a hero to me [1]. This is an awesome find -- thank you for sharing. [1] https://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html

98 points by notpushkin 4y ago

Matthew Butterick is also the author of Beautiful Racket https://beautifulracket.com/ https://beautifulracket.com/ and several fonts https://practicaltypography.com/mb-fonts.html https://practicaltypography.com/mb-fonts.html. As an ex-lawyer turned coder and one-time type setter for a school paper, I can only marvel at his accomplishments.

mark_l_watson 4y ago
I saw him present one time, perhaps it was RacketFest (Racket programming get together with lots of demos). He does a lot of creative project and his Racket books look good. Few things are better than someone having a personal need for something (in his case his own typesetting and publishing tools), builds the tools, then writes books about it.
JHonaker 4y ago
My favorite thing he’s doing right now is suing GitHub/Microsoft for blatantly violating almost all the licenses on their hosted code for GPT. https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com/ https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com/ I’m also an enormous fan of his book, Beautiful Racket. It’s what set me off on the path of being a self-identified Scheme programmer.

hkhanna 4y ago

My company, Magistrate [0], has elements that are heavily inspired by this book! Legal documents should be written in plain text, not Microsoft Word. Then, typographical conventions from books like this one can be enforced at the editor level with linters and autoformatters. Lawyers spend way too much time and money on formatting Microsoft Word documents. How much unnecessary effort could be saved if we had black (the python package) for legal documents? Uncompromising formatting and typography for legal documents would go along way to eliminating the bikeshedding that lawyers do around useless formatting. If this is the kind of thing that interests you, please reach out! [0] https://getmagistrate.com/ https://getmagistrate.com/

bavila 4y ago
Have you found it to be problematic that some (perhaps many) lawyers like bikeshedding in Word, as it gives them an excuse to pad their billable hours?
- hkhanna 4y ago
  Only to the extent we market to folks who bill by the hour. But there are lots of people who work with legal documents who don't bill by the hour, and that's the target market for now.
- Digory 4y ago
  It isn’t padding. It’s judges. If your lawyer can lose a case over formatting (and they can), your lawyer can get sued for malpractice for screwing up formatting. Why do judges insist on arcane, high level published documents? Judges benefit from repeat players — the formatting helps them routinize their analysis and spot the careless lawyer, or the one unfamiliar with local law. It’s an effective filter of the arguments.
  - bavila 4y ago
    > If your lawyer can lose a case over formatting (and they can)... It's true that there are certain typographical requirements that must be met in certain court filings, but I have also seen lawyers bikeshed in Word by obsessing over things as menial as left vs. justified text alignment (and then even decide how to rephrase language after changing to justified alignment because they don't like the rivers[1] they are now seeing). Unless such requirements are codified in court rules, then it is not something that would win/lose a case, and it is just a billable-hour timesink. > Why do judges insist on arcane, high level published documents? Judges benefit from repeat players... You may be giving them too much credit in their cunning. It's just easier and more efficient to navigate a complex system when we're all operating off of the same framework -- no different than programming. I've worked as a law clerk and attorney, and, yes, judges will have their biases as to which attorneys they are more likely to trust than others, but that occurs through building actual rapport in court, not by following formatting rules. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(typography) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(typography)

emadabdulrahim 4y ago

This is where I learned some of the fundamentals of Typography. I'm a design engineer by trade. Highly recommend.

gorgoiler 4y ago

Why do the headings not start with capital letters?

sosull 4y ago

I've spent years admiring his work as a type designer. It's vexing work to create a serif that's versatile enough to compete with the simplicity and legibility of standard office-type fonts. I think he pulled the rabbit out of the hat with the Equity font. It's intended for lawyers, IANAL, but it's genuinely useful in a much bigger mixture of situations.

wizardforhire 4y ago

I’m sure the information in this article is close to canon, as the usual suspects of fonts get mentioned and from the start they seem to be hitting the basics… However, for a self prophesied typography article on the web when viewed on a mobile device this is humorously unbearable to look at.

tiahura 4y ago

This lawyer says “bleh.” Two spaces after a sentence make paragraphs easier to parse.

dctoedt 4y ago
> Two spaces after a sentence make paragraphs easier to parse. Correct. Most readers of any legal document have zero interest in sipping and savoring each word as if the document were a fine wine. Readers want to learn — as quickly as possible — "what do I need to care about," and then move on to the next item on their to-do lists. Two spaces after a sentence help the reader do that (as do short, single-subject paragraphs).
philderbeast 4y ago
sounds like your stuck in the past, two spaces after a paragraph has been a dead convention for years by this point.
- dctoedt 4y ago
  > two spaces after a paragraph has been a dead convention for years by this point. It's "a dead convention" among people who care about the aesthetic pleasure that they get from the visual beauty of the paragraph and who don't like the "ugliness" of the extra spacing. People who care more about serving the reader are less dogmatic about two spaces after a sentence, and even prefer it for legal documents, because two spaces makes it easier for a skimmer to jump from sentence to sentence.
  - Blahah 4y ago
    That's a styling issue, not to be solved by typing two spaces unless you're using a typewriter. Just adjust the size of a space to the appropriate size when the text is rendered for the reader (in a word processor for example).
    - dctoedt 4y ago
      > Just adjust the size of a space to the appropriate size That would work IF the rendering engine knew it was supposed to use a horizontally-larger space at the end of a sentence (comparable to the CSS styling element "padding-right"). A uniformly-larger space would defeat the purpose, namely to make it easier to spot the end of the sentence through the extra space after it.

i_am_proteus 4y ago

The author is also one of the lawyers bringing suit against (Microsoft) Github Copilot.[2] [2]https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/ https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/

kderbyma 4y ago

I cofounded a company years ago with a bunch of people around the core concept of 'Legal is Code'. Had a falling out with my cofounders but the company is still going.

nathell 4y ago

I just noticed that it overlaps with „Practical Typography” (https://practicaltypography.com/ https://practicaltypography.com/) to a large extent. So much so that I’d consider them two flavours of the same book, rather than two separate ones. Also, if you liked the book and feel that you got value out of it, please pay for it – if only to support the experiment in Web self-publishing that it is. I’ve procrastinated it for far too long, but finally bit the bullet, and touched on it here: https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/ https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/09/24/paying-for-books/

bitwize 4y ago

Legal typography is persnickety and its own kind of weird. There are courts in the USA that have very specific rules, including odd paper dimensions and font sizes, that need to be observed when filing with them. To my knowledge these serve mainly as brown M&M clauses to ensure that the lawyers filing in these courts are paying attention.

sudobash1 4y ago

I found the most interesting section to be on the copyright status of fonts: https://typographyforlawyers.com/the-copyright-status-of-fonts.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/the-copyright-status-of-fon... It describes how there is some debate as to whether or not fonts can be copyrighted, and it ends with: > Fonts are digital files, and like every other digital file, the internet will happily provide you a free copy. Yet the font business—completely opposite to the music business in this regard—has continued to grow and thrive in the internet era. Therefore, the font business must be based on something closer to the honor system. It remains an unusual counterexample to the idea that digital rights management and litigation are indispensable tools in intellectual-property economies.

stuntkite 4y ago

One time I cofounded a legal deposition application that would compile transcripts and exhibits for submissions to the court. We also did auto transcription and time stamping. It was this whole thing and is gone now. Anyway, The submission requirements vary WILDLY region to region. The typography and margin constraints as well as occasional weird other features like in one county (parish?) in Louisiana it had to be filed bound with a yellow ribbon or something like that. How much time I spent with weird minutia of legal typesetting, this book seems like a great and interesting read.

rayiner 4y ago

Some of this is quite controversial. On some controversial points I think he's wrong, e.g. font size. https://typographyforlawyers.com/point-size.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/point-size.html. The federal appellate courts require at least 14 points, and the Supreme Court requires at least 13 points. Magazines may use smaller fonts, but (1) printing costs matter a lot more in that industry; and (2) the average age of the federal judiciary is a lot older than the average age of most magazine readers. On other controversial points, I think he's right, e.g. one space between sentences: https://typographyforlawyers.com/one-space-between-sentences.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/one-space-between-sentences.... But I'll probably never be edgy enough to do that.

joegahona 4y ago

Garner has an epic grammar/usage book that I used years ago when I was a copy editor. Anyone who's in the uphill crusade to rid legal text of all-caps is a hero to me [1]. This is an awesome find -- thank you for sharing. [1] https://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html https://typographyforlawyers.com/all-caps.html