Category Archives: Law Practice

Tips for Concision 9: Make independent clauses participial phrases

You can improve concision by turning independent clauses into participial phrases.

First, let’s define terms. An independent clause has a subject and a verb and could be a complete sentence by itself. A participial phrase begins with a participle (an –ing verb) and modifies something; participial phrases typically serve as adjectives. Because it’s a phrase, it doesn’t have a subject.

Turning independent clauses into participial phrases means making two sentences into one, but it’s a particular way of doing it. Suppose we have these two sentences:

  • Nunez and Hill had worked at the store together for four years. They had formed a strong friendship.

You can be more concise by converting the second sentence into a participial phrase. Then you can embed it inside the first sentence, setting it off with commas, like this:

  • Nunez and Hill, having worked at the store together for four years, had formed a strong friendship.

Or use it to begin the sentence, like this:

  • Having worked at the store together for four years, Nunez and Hill had formed a strong friendship.

The original is 18 words, and the revisions are both 17. Granted that one word is a modest gain in concision, that is often how concision works: rather than one big edit that saves many words, you make many small edits that add up.

How do lawyers do at giving assignments?

I sent 22 lawyers this one-question survey, asking them to check one.

__ Most senior attorneys are good at giving research-and-writing assignments and instructions.
__ Most senior attorneys are average at giving research-and-writing assignments and instructions.
__ Most senior attorneys are poor at giving research-and-writing assignments and instructions.

I was expecting a lot of “poor” responses, but I suppose I should have been able to predict the results, given that I’m a teacher who grades a course on a curve:

  • Good = 7
  • Average = 9
  • Poor = 6

That’s a pretty decent bell curve. Here are two interesting comments from my respondents:

“I think senior attorneys struggle to understand and acknowledge all the information and background they retain and know but don’t always explain to a newer attorney who might need that information and background to effectively perform the  assignment.”

Well said. This is the curse of knowledge, the frustratingly common phenomenon of being unable to recognize that others don’t know what you know.

“It depends on the cut-off between senior attorney and junior attorney. I would say folks in their first 3-5 years are good, folks who’ve practiced for 10 or more are confusing or poor, and folks in between are average.”

Makes sense, right? The farther you get from the novice level, the harder it is to communicate at the novice level.

Tips for Concision 8: Edit for Wordiness

TexasBarToday_TopTen_Badge_Small

Wordiness would cover most of the concision techniques discussed in this series, such as omit needless details, deflate compound prepositions, and remove redundancy, but now let’s focus on commonly used phrases you can almost always shorten:

  • prior to becomes before
  • subsequent to becomes after
  • adjacent to becomes next to

Want more?

  • a number of becomes many
  • at the present time becomes now
  • at such time as becomes when
  • despite the fact that becomes although
  • during such time as becomes while
  • for the purpose of becomes to
  • in excess of becomes more than or over
  • in the event that becomes if
  • notwithstanding the fact that becomes although
  • on a daily [monthly, yearly] basis becomes daily [monthly, yearly]

To achieve concision, edit for wordiness—and then reduce big words while you’re at it:

  • adequate number of becomes sufficient

then–

  • sufficient becomes enough

Advice to a new lawyer?

1 Reply

What advice would you give a new lawyer about legal writing?

I’ll be writing and presenting on this question in February, and I’d appreciate your views.

I think of things like “develop good editing habits,” “try to get drafts done early,” and “read a reference book once in a while.” But I’d like to hear from practicing lawyers.

Regular readers know that I keep comments disabled because I get thousands of spam comments. But the comments are open for this.

-Wayne