The potential for the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has affected almost every modern industry. However, it seemed for sometime that the sophisticated prose required of lawyers would prevent AI from replacing human attorneys, but recent updates in technology show that the use of AI in legal writing may not be far over the horizon.
As societal norms change, how legal writers use language changes too. This is never more prevalent than with a legal writer’s use of pronouns. It may seem that a legal writer must choose to be either grammatically correct or inclusive. This article indicates that perhaps this is not the case and provides alternatives to choosing one of these options over the other.
https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/inclusive_legal_writing
An anonymous appellate lawyer who describes himself as a “persnickety dude” tweets typos from the New York Times as a hobby.
Regent University law professor James J. Duan wrote U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor about a phrase she used in a dissent this month. Professor Duane told Sotomayor that she misused a phrase in this sentence: “Little if nothing appears left of the statutory exemptions after today’s constitutional broadside.” In his July 14 letter, he notes that she meant instead to write ‘little or nothing’ or ‘little if anything’.
In a recent ruling, a U.S. District Judge rejected a brief submitted by the U.S. Department of Justice, because it violated the assigned judge’s standing rule limiting the use of footnote text. The brief that the Department of Justice submitted contains twelve footnotes, with a total of eighty footnote text lines. The assigned judge has previously tossed out other briefs on hot-button issues for violation of the footnote rule.
Instances like this should remind law students and practitioners to always check and act within the guidelines of the form and style rules governing your jurisdiction or regulations and guidance provided by a particular judge. Failing to do so could end up with important, and otherwise well written documents being thrown out for overlooking something as common place as footnotes.
A U.S. District Judge for the District of Oregon sanction the law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine and one of its partners ordering them to pay more than $40,000 for failing to mention “long-standing, settled caselaw” that barred the court from issuing an injunction sought by the law firm. The judge said that the failure to disclose was “an attempt to deceive the court via a material omission.”
This case is a reminder how important legal research and professional ethics are to the practice of law.
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/judge-slams-davis-wright-for-failing-to-mention-longstanding-settled-case-law-orders-40k-sanction