Writer’s Workshop: Write as if the Reader Will Be a Human Being
T
BY STEPHEN J. RICE
he Netflix show Ozark concludes this year with a season that Netflix is releasing in two blocks of episodes: one block was released in early 2022, and the second block came later. The other day my wife and I finished the first block. Ozark is an outstanding show that has taken its place in our “golden-age-of-TV,” so we were naturally eager to know: when will the second block of episodes be released?
For the answer, I somewhat inartfully asked Siri (the supplied an answer that we would expect from a computer. iPhone’s virtual assistant): “When is Ozark coming out?” Google’s assistant responded like a human being. Siri answered literally, as one would expect a computer to do: “Ozark was released in 2017.” Obviously this was not the WHY THIS ANECDOTE? answer I was seeking. Because it relates to how attorneys write. Aspects of And so I switched to Google’s assistant. Answer: “Ozark standard “attorney writing” are Siri-esque, in that the prose will return for its final episodes on Friis often too literal. “This is a feature day, April 29 on Netflix.” Google underand not a bug,” you might be thinking. Stephen J. stood the question like most humans While it can sometimes be a feature, it Rice is an would have done. is quite often a bug. Assistant One of my favorite legal maxims is Let me give you a pedestrian examState’s “words have meaning by the company ple. You’re drafting a motion to compel Attorney in the Civil Dithat they keep.” (You like your fancy after failing to work out a compromise vision of the canons? Then noscitur a sociis.) The with your opposing counsel. Quite Lake County company that a word keeps can be the commonly, the prose will look like this: State’s words around it, or more broadly the On March 5, 2022, counsel for the Attorney’s circumstances in which their meaning plaintiff sent the defendant’s counOffice. He was the exists. (E.g.: “I did it:” Is there a dead sel an email asking when discovery 2019-2020 man on the ground, or a new car in the would be tendered. On March 15, President of the Lake County Bar driveway?) Siri was too literal-mind2022, defendant’s counsel respondAssociation. ed about the question I asked, and it ed that he needed more time. On
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The Docket
