If a court prefers or requires that counsel furnish a proposed order, it is important to know the stylistic guidelines the court prefers. Judge Robert Kressel, the bankruptcy judge for the District of Minnesota, has created a set of order preparation guidelines. Some of the guidelines are instructive for the drafting of other documents as well.
Some highlights include:
- To create a pdf, do not scan in the document; instead create it directly from Word or WordPerfect.
My comment: Doing this creates a much cleaner pdf, one that is capable of being searched and copied. Of course, some documents -- ones in which an original electronic version is not available -- will still need to be scanned.
- "Lawyers apparently love to capitalize words. Pleadings, including proposed orders, are commonly full of words that are capitalized, not quite randomly, but certainly with great abandon. Please limit the use of capitalization to proper names."
- "Eliminate superfluous words" (i.e., avoid legalese). Judge Kressel's example: Compare the meaning of “Now, therefore, it may be and is hereby ordered that:” with “It is ordered:”
My comment: When I proofread, I now specifically look for words I can delete and find ways to shorten my sentences.
- Keep plurals and possessives straight and consistent. Know when to use debtors (plural), debtor’s (singular possessive), and debtors’ (plural possessive). Make sure the verb matches the subject of the sentence.
- Use the possessive noun “its” and the contraction “it’s” correctly.
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