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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, typ

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)
    - rayiner 4y ago
      > 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) Lawyers fight over this stuff for the same reason programs fight over 4 spaces versus 8 spaces indentation. Judges have to read hundreds if not thousands of pages of briefing a week. Making it a little easier for the judge to follow your point does make a difference. And will it win or lose cases? Probably not. But how often do appellate briefs argue that the trial judge “overlooked” or “misapprehended” some argument? Stuff gets lost in the shuffle and sometimes not putting the best version of your argument out there leads to bad rulings. And just as in software, spending a little time up front to learn a standardized style and best practices means that in practice it should be muscle memory and take very little time to churn out briefs that look nice and are easy to read typographically. (Also, ragged justification is a crutch for people who don’t know how to use soft hyphens. There’s a reason you never see a magazine or book with ragged justification.)
    - Digory 4y ago
      Yes, there's required typography, and there's what you might call "learned" typography. You read Butterick to look more polished, and to show judges you're educated. You fight over fonts because one font might be more legible than another. And you fight over two spaces after a period, or use (cleaned up) to show that you're in the forefront of the practice. > You may be giving them too much credit in their cunning. No one has to be especially cunning; it's just a tradition that develops because it works well enough. The American tradition weeds out people who don't have an incentive to help the system be efficient. The English system regulates Barristers even more. If the loss of your license doesn't mean anything (because there won't be a next time for you) then a lot of the rules lose their sting. Judges do spot carpetbaggers and neophytes through their briefing. You've never seen a pro se brief that used CAPS FOR SHOUTING, or six different fonts? All classic marks of someone outside the normal system. And even among lawyers, there are tells. In my jurisdiction, we don't use line numbers. A Californian who shows up with line numbers in the briefing is a dead giveaway, and vice versa. Granted, a handful of times, pro se plaintiffs won at the Supreme Court.[1] But those are exceptions that prove the rule. I don't think it should be this way, but knowing the local judges' typography preferences counts as 'law practice.' For now. [1] https://abovethelaw.com/2013/07/r-i-p-pro-se-litigants-before-the-supreme-court/ https://abovethelaw.com/2013/07/r-i-p-pro-se-litigants-befor...
ghaff 4y ago
I'm certainly not a fan of Word and only use it when I have no other choice, but while the OP is specifically about typography I wonder about the lack of (that I could see) discussion of revision tracking and other word processor features that seem to be pretty important in a legal context. (And specifically in a legal context where Word seems to be pretty much the standard.)
- henryfjordan 4y ago
  Word is dominant in the law precisely because of Track Changes. Most sophisticated firms have templates and macros aplenty and so really don't spend all that much more effort on formatting than they would if they used Markdown or something.
- Digory 4y ago
  Git.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    That's such a practical answer for a large firm of lawyers who are used to Word. Hard to believe no one ever thought of it.
    - Digory 4y ago
      I thought you were commenting on the unavailability of version control for plain text, not the psychological inertia of the users. It would take decades of therapy to wean some lawyers off WordPerfect, let alone Word. But that's more because it's a habit-verging-on-compulsion, not because WYSIWYG software has cornered the market on version control. (Really, was WorldDocs truly any better than git?) It would be better for everyone if documents were stored in plain text, formatted to the reader's liking by the reader, and edited with format-agnostic tools.
TheRealPomax 4y ago
black but for prose would be Vale, https://github.com/errata-ai/vale https://github.com/errata-ai/vale
kemitchell 4y ago
I did https://commonform.github.io/ https://commonform.github.io/.
rayiner 4y ago
> Legal documents should be written in plain text, not Microsoft Word And programs should be written in Common Lisp, or maybe Rust, but the world is still written in JavaScript. > Lawyers spend way too much time and money on formatting Microsoft Word documents ?? Lawyers have been using text styles since the WordPerfect days. As to plain text, as much as I’d love to write everything in TeX, any non-WYSIWYG approach is a non-starter with non-technical users. Stuff has to plug into the existing Word work flow. If you’ve got a better plugin for handling styling in Word I’d love to see it.
- mark_l_watson 4y ago
  Well, he is writing in Lisp: Racket is a batteries included Scheme and language laboratory (for writing experimental languages). I prefer Common Lisp myself since I have used the language since 1982 but Racket is very nice. I once took a medium length Common Lisp program I wrote (KnowledgeGraph Navigator) and reimplemented it in Racket and that was a pleasant experience.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
caseyscottmckay 4y ago
Agreed. Spend time on substance, not style. I write documents in markdown and use pandoc with templates to handle styling.

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)
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > 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) Lawyers fight over this stuff for the same reason programs fight over 4 spaces versus 8 spaces indentation. Judges have to read hundreds if not thousands of pages of briefing a week. Making it a little easier for the judge to follow your point does make a difference. And will it win or lose cases? Probably not. But how often do appellate briefs argue that the trial judge “overlooked” or “misapprehended” some argument? Stuff gets lost in the shuffle and sometimes not putting the best version of your argument out there leads to bad rulings. And just as in software, spending a little time up front to learn a standardized style and best practices means that in practice it should be muscle memory and take very little time to churn out briefs that look nice and are easy to read typographically. (Also, ragged justification is a crutch for people who don’t know how to use soft hyphens. There’s a reason you never see a magazine or book with ragged justification.)
  - Digory 4y ago
    Yes, there's required typography, and there's what you might call "learned" typography. You read Butterick to look more polished, and to show judges you're educated. You fight over fonts because one font might be more legible than another. And you fight over two spaces after a period, or use (cleaned up) to show that you're in the forefront of the practice. > You may be giving them too much credit in their cunning. No one has to be especially cunning; it's just a tradition that develops because it works well enough. The American tradition weeds out people who don't have an incentive to help the system be efficient. The English system regulates Barristers even more. If the loss of your license doesn't mean anything (because there won't be a next time for you) then a lot of the rules lose their sting. Judges do spot carpetbaggers and neophytes through their briefing. You've never seen a pro se brief that used CAPS FOR SHOUTING, or six different fonts? All classic marks of someone outside the normal system. And even among lawyers, there are tells. In my jurisdiction, we don't use line numbers. A Californian who shows up with line numbers in the briefing is a dead giveaway, and vice versa. Granted, a handful of times, pro se plaintiffs won at the Supreme Court.[1] But those are exceptions that prove the rule. I don't think it should be this way, but knowing the local judges' typography preferences counts as 'law practice.' For now. [1] https://abovethelaw.com/2013/07/r-i-p-pro-se-litigants-before-the-supreme-court/ https://abovethelaw.com/2013/07/r-i-p-pro-se-litigants-befor...

ghaff 4y ago

I'm certainly not a fan of Word and only use it when I have no other choice, but while the OP is specifically about typography I wonder about the lack of (that I could see) discussion of revision tracking and other word processor features that seem to be pretty important in a legal context. (And specifically in a legal context where Word seems to be pretty much the standard.)

henryfjordan 4y ago
Word is dominant in the law precisely because of Track Changes. Most sophisticated firms have templates and macros aplenty and so really don't spend all that much more effort on formatting than they would if they used Markdown or something.
Digory 4y ago
Git.
- ghaff 4y ago
  That's such a practical answer for a large firm of lawyers who are used to Word. Hard to believe no one ever thought of it.
  - Digory 4y ago
    I thought you were commenting on the unavailability of version control for plain text, not the psychological inertia of the users. It would take decades of therapy to wean some lawyers off WordPerfect, let alone Word. But that's more because it's a habit-verging-on-compulsion, not because WYSIWYG software has cornered the market on version control. (Really, was WorldDocs truly any better than git?) It would be better for everyone if documents were stored in plain text, formatted to the reader's liking by the reader, and edited with format-agnostic tools.

TheRealPomax 4y ago

black but for prose would be Vale, https://github.com/errata-ai/vale https://github.com/errata-ai/vale

kemitchell 4y ago

I did https://commonform.github.io/ https://commonform.github.io/.

rayiner 4y ago

> Legal documents should be written in plain text, not Microsoft Word And programs should be written in Common Lisp, or maybe Rust, but the world is still written in JavaScript. > Lawyers spend way too much time and money on formatting Microsoft Word documents ?? Lawyers have been using text styles since the WordPerfect days. As to plain text, as much as I’d love to write everything in TeX, any non-WYSIWYG approach is a non-starter with non-technical users. Stuff has to plug into the existing Word work flow. If you’ve got a better plugin for handling styling in Word I’d love to see it.

mark_l_watson 4y ago
Well, he is writing in Lisp: Racket is a batteries included Scheme and language laboratory (for writing experimental languages). I prefer Common Lisp myself since I have used the language since 1982 but Racket is very nice. I once took a medium length Common Lisp program I wrote (KnowledgeGraph Navigator) and reimplemented it in Racket and that was a pleasant experience.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

caseyscottmckay 4y ago

Agreed. Spend time on substance, not style. I write documents in markdown and use pandoc with templates to handle styling.