Some writers feel compelled to insert extra hyphens. Often they do it when they think they spot an adverb. Sometimes the offending word isn’t even functioning as an adverb; it’s part of a compound verb. Either way, put away the hyphen and step ...
Theda C. Snyder - January 11, 2017
“All professions are a conspiracy against the laity,” said George Bernard Shaw. In the legal profession, the best evidence of a conspiracy is the often impenetrable density and complexity of the law. It’s almost impossible for laypersons to ...
Jay Harrington - January 4, 2017
Mountain climbers are fastidious about the lines they trust their lives to, and scuba divers are constantly checking the tanks and regulators on which they depend. In the hectic world of practicing law — when one interruption is so often itself ...
J.W. Freiberg - December 6, 2016Attorneys frequently ignore this basic journalism rule: Start with your strongest point. Your lead or “lede” should entice the reader to continue reading. The phrase “bury the lede” appears to be the only use of this alternate spelling. Perhaps ...
Theda C. Snyder - December 5, 2016Most lawyers deal with the printed word all day long. They’ve been trained to take in and share knowledge as text. As a writer, it’s a stretch for me to even conceive of presenting information in a simple Excel chart. My bible starts, “In the ...
Susan Kostal - December 1, 2016
Meetings are the most expensive periods of time we spend together. Try, for example, adding up the loaded employee cost of a simple weekly status meeting. Your answer will make it immediately clear why meetings need to be highly productive to ...
Paul H. Burton - November 21, 2016Comma placement can cause a big effect in legal documents. (See "What Broadway's Hamilton Teaches About Legal Interpretation.") In ...
Theda C. Snyder - November 9, 2016
Email may be good for maintaining a relationship, but it is not good for building one. Both email and texting are fast, convenient and essentially allow nonstop 24/7 communication. The downside is they are easily misinterpreted — and emails ...
Michael Baker - October 12, 2016Comma placement matters. Broadway musical Hamilton’s Angelica Schuyler sings in “Take a Break”: In a letter I received from you two weeks ago I noticed a comma in the middle of a phrase It changed the meaning. Did you intend this? One ...
Theda C. Snyder - October 11, 2016I read an article recently called “Marketing Yourself as an Expert: What Clients Look For.” According to the research presented, there are five key factors that clients associate with “visible experts”:
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