No one should have to wait 94 words for a verb, and other observations from legal writing

No one should have to wait 94 words for a verb, and other observations from legal writing

Sentences that never seem to end create a cognitive load on the reader. The longer and more convoluted they are, the worse it gets. Legal writers, in particular, seem to have a problem with this. The solution — as you’ll see from this egregious example — is to break things down and create structure. An…

Barstool Sports tells Elika Sadeghi that they’re schmucks. Is this a problem?
| |

Barstool Sports tells Elika Sadeghi that they’re schmucks. Is this a problem?

Barstool Sports offered reporter Elika Sadeghi a two-year contract that specified she’d be subject to offensive speech. Sort of. The whole incident falls apart upon close examination. As described in The Boston Globe, Sadeghi opted not to take the gig when she read the contract. It included a passage saying she understood that her colleagues…

The clarity of Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court

The clarity of Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court

The New York Times described Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court as “an Echo of [Antonin] Scalia in Philosophy and Style.” But where the late Justice Scalia’s writings were sarcastic and passive-aggressive, Gorsuch’s are straightforward, logical, and clear. Because he writes often in the first-person, his arguments come across as direct rather than snide or veiled. Let’s…