One of my students, Drew Walgreen, recommended this article by Bryan A. Garner, published originally in the Michigan Bar Journal. Bryan Garner, if you haven’t already heard, is a noted legal writing specialist and author who has written books such as Legal Writing in Plain English. This article focuses on twenty common mistakes lawyers make when editing sentences. I like that the article gives an example of each mistake and the corrected version.
A few months ago, I pulled the Norton Anthology of English Literature from my bookshelf—an old friend to read on a cold winter day. The page fell open to Keats, and a reference to Richard Woodhouse, barrister and friend of Keats, caught my eye.
John Keats (1795-1821) was an English Romantic poet. Keats wrote for six years before he died of tuberculosis in Rome at age 25. During that short time, he created some of the most beautiful verse, such as his sonnet, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816):
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific–and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise–
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Richard Woodhouse was an English barrister who represented Keats’ publisher, Taylor and Hessey. Keats and Woodhouse became friends, and Woodhouse encouraged Keats in his writing. Keats was to receive an inheritance when he turned 21, but he did not know of the inheritance. As such, Keats struggled for want of money, and his publisher gave him an advance on his second book. To me, Woodhouse had a unique view of Keats that came in part from Woodhouse’s work as a lawyer: Woodhouse, as a lawyer, was able to evaluate Keats both professionally and personally, and he recognized Keats’ talent.
Each spring semester, when my first-year writing students have moved from objective writing from pre-selected authorities to persuasive writing and doing their own research, I have them keep track of their time. In law practice, time is money. Even if a lawyer does not bill her hours to a client, she is likely still required to keep track of their time, if only for that organization’s internal purposes. For better or for worse, practicing attorneys must know well each .1 of an hour they work, on what, and for whom.
The time-keeping exercise is designed to provide students practice with billing their time, learning, for example, how to convert, say, twenty minutes of reading cases to .3 of research. It’s also an exercise designed to give them practice on what kinds of activities to bill. The time spent online looking for case law? Yes. The writing of the brief? Of course. But what about that one-hour meeting with the professor? Sure. I’d call that an office conference and lawyers have those all the time.
After students have finished their first briefs and have turned in their time sheets, I have them reflect on keeping time and ask them what they learned from the exercise. Most students aren’t fond of the exercise, but do recognize its value. One student once asked why I couldn’t ask them to keep track of their time in “normal” increments, like .25, .50, .75, and 1.00. This year, one student responded that keeping time was, for him, incredibly painful. You see, he said, he has Attention-Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).