Obscure language obscures the truth. Simple, sharp, and straightforward language reveals truth. The courtroom ought to be a place where truth is consistently revealed and upheld. For this to occur, facts and evidence need to be presented and organized in a way that is simple and intelligible. As Professor Irving Younger insisted: “A legal system, like any system of thought, should be clear. We lawyers or judges or law professors have an obligation to those we serve, the public at large, to speak lucidly about the law. We owe it to the public to practice simplicity of language.”
If your lawyer is a big talker, that does not mean he is an effective advocate. One example of a lawyer who was a big talker was Stephen Douglas in the 1850s who made long-winded arguments for why every state in the Union should be allowed to have slavery. But when Lincoln questioned Douglas during the Lincoln-Douglas debates about the morality of the laws applicable to slavery, Douglas would always give evasive answers and he took a great amount of time doing it. As Lincoln commented, “His explanations explanatory of explanations explained are interminable.” This is why one of our Core Values is clarity. One of the most important skills in the legal profession is communication. Clear communication is essential to resolving cases, both inside and outside the courts.
In a time where legal writing is an increasingly shoddy, hastily drafted, cut-and-paste patchwork, we habitually practice carefully edited legal writing, reinforced by on point citations to the most relevant law. This is because we believe that clarity and candor in legal writing is a matter of intellectual integrity. If you cannot explain the reasons for a law or a legal outcome clearly, then there is something you either do not understand or something you are hiding. If we don’t understand something in law, we immediately admit it. If we have something to hide, it will only be because we have discussed hiding it with our client first and doing so is ethical and prudent.
To be consistent with this principle in our legal arguments and our legal drafting, we take pride in submitting only clear and polished written work to the court or to the client at the highest standard of written English prose. Bryan A. Garner, lawyer and legal lexicographer, states: “Writers must learn to have a point, to deliver it efficiently, to cut the extra words that inevitably appear in any first draft, and to maintain a clean narrative line …” This is how every legal argument ought to be made, and the result is effective advocacy both within and outside the courtroom.
Plutarch’s Apophthegmata Laconica tells us how the Spartans were famous for their brevity and simplicity of speech. But they were also enemies to over-complicated legislation and too many laws. To emphasize this truth, Charillus of Sparta said that “Those who use few words have need of but few laws.” And those lawyers who are capable of using few words to communicate clearly bill their clients fewer attorneys fees.