Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Fall 2014, Vol. 40, No. 3 | Page 40

Sweat the Small Stuff

“the effect it has on the reader. The period signals to the reader that the sentence
is over, a thought completed, and another
about to begin. Stop.”25 The second space
following the “full stop” drives this point
home.
I am well aware of the Vermont Bar Journal’s style sheet rule that only one space
goes between sentences. This does not
change my position on using two spaces in
documents you write. The Chicago Manual
of Style says authors should not use “two
spaces after a period in published work.”26
Style considerations may differ for published work, but two spaces provide crucial
“breathing room” for the reader in court
documents. Humor me on this one. It’s
okay to be over 40!
Conclusion

You can ignore my suggestions but I
hope you take my advice: Details matter
in legal writing. If my five suggestions do
not do it for you, choose five of your own.
I have sprinkled the footnotes of this column with cites to a number of legal writing manuals. Check these out or return to
some of your favorites. Challenge yourself,
for example, to avoid contractions, nominalizations, the passive voice, and empty

words like “situation.” Whatever it is, start
somewhere. Hold yourself to high standards on the little things and your writing will improve from the ground up. The
point behind all of these seemingly trivial
rules, whichever ones you adopt, is that
you are spending time on your sentences.
This helps you make your thoughts sharper. Writing is a thinking process. The more
time you spend editing your sentences the
better your thoughts will be.
A book called The Glamour of Grammar
summarizes my position well: “Here’s the
moral of the story: If you are working inside the language, no decision is too small.
The subtlest of changes with the smallest
words can create the most dramatic effects.”27 Sure, some legal writing rules are
more important than others are, but they
all matter to some degree. Care about subject-verb agreement for collective nouns.
Care about possessive rules for joint possession (“Lewis and Clark’s expedition began in 1804.”) and individual possession
(“The plaintiff’s and the defendant’s opening statements were quite different.”).28
Sweat the small stuff in le