Professor Michael McChrystal once pointed out that in the State of Wisconsin, the penalty for working as a beautician without a license is not much different from the penalty for practicing law without a license.
“The four most important typographic choices you make in any document are point size, line spacing, line length, and font, because those choices determine how the body text looks.” Matthew Butterick, Typography for Lawyers: Essential Tools for Polished and Persuasive Documents, “Summary of Key Rules” (2010).
Does that sentence make any sense to you? If so, find Butterick’s book: you will love it.
If not, run out and get Butterick’s book: you need it.
After running a website on typography for lawyers, www.typographyforlawyers.com, Matthew Butterick last year published a book on the subject. The book seems designed to do for typography what Bryan Garner’s work has done on matters of style and usage—to convince more lawyers that this “small stuff” matters in their writing, in their approach to the practice.
Indeed, Butterick’s belief that “typography” should become part of the vocabulary and professional awareness of lawyers forms the “core principles” of his book:
When I was attending law school, I always heard about the importance of having mentors. I recall Professor Fallone quipping about his professor, Archibald Cox, and encouraging my Constitutional Law class to adopt heroes in the law.