Typography for Judges Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog
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88 A FINER POINT Vol. 104 No. 2 The quick brownTypography for judges fox jumps over the lazy dog. ot so long ago, the prevail- Competent typography is still get closer to the ideal by using ing standard for typography 28-point line spacing (actual double- in opinions and briefs was an element of quality legal spacing for 14-point type) instead of atrocious. The entire pro- writing. If you’re going Word’s default double-spacing. Nfession seemed to believe that the way Hard spaces after § symbols. A hard to go to all the effort of to make a document look lawyerly and space binds together the text on both serious was to make reading it diffi- choosing the right words, sides, so the symbol isn’t left dangling cult and dreary. Unscalable walls of you may as well put in a at the end of the line. To create a hard capitalized and underlined text — in a little effort to make people space, press Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar keys. typewriter-style font — predominated. want to read them, too. No orphan headings. Select the Then came Butterick. In 2010, a lawyer “keep with next” setting in Word and professional typographer named (found in Home>Paragraph>Line and Matthew Butterick changed every- Page Breaks). thing with his book Typography for contents. And all of his subsidiary Bulleted lists for emphasis. Lawyers: Essential Tools for Polished & headings use normal text. The section En dashes for number ranges. Use it Persuasive Documents. Butterick taught headings in the body of the opinion use between spans of years (1986–87) and a generation of lawyers that they could SMALL CAPS; the table of contents uses pages (55–57). A good mnemonic is that make their documents vastly easier to Title Caps. The key point: No multi-line “an en dash means within.” read simply by embracing basic design all-caps headings. Too many opinions Real em dashes — not two hyphens choices that professional typographers and briefs still get this wrong and, to autocorrected as en dashes. Find both have agreed on for decades. any reader who cares about typogra- en and em dashes under Insert> Today, competent typography is phy, it’s like a lawyer showing up for Advanced Symbol, where you can also an element of quality legal writing. If oral argument wearing a propeller cap. create your own shortcut keys. you’re going to go to all the effort of One space after periods. As Butterick Citations in text, not footnotes. choosing the right words, you may as observes, lawyers still debate about Bouncing from text to footnote and well put in a little effort to make people one space versus two, but typography back can be a chore for legal readers, want to read them, too. authorities and professionals don’t. but it’s extra tedious for people reading One judge who understands the Zero underlining, and easy on the on tablets. While there are still hold- importance of good typography is boldface. outs, the growing consensus favors Judge Stephanos Bibas of the United Smaller paragraph indents. Just say keeping citations in the text. States Court of Appeals for the Third no to 1-inch paragraph indents. Sure, a professional typographer Circuit. Before joining the bench in Hyphenation on with justified text. could still pick some nits. Using Times 2017, Judge Bibas was a law professor Either left-aligned or justified is a fine New Roman is the biggest; Third who led a Supreme Court clinic and a choice, but, if you choose justified, turn Circuit judges may not have the option highly regarded appellate advocate. on automatic hyphenation to avoid of picking a better font, but if you do, Now, as a judge, his opinions aren’t just awkward spacing between words. you should. I use Equity for maximum clearly written, they’re also models of Better vertical line spacing. Court font-nerd cred. good typography. Because the Third opinions often are single-spaced, but For more on good typography, see Circuit doesn’t have a uniform style Judge Bibas uses slightly more open Butterick’s Typography for Lawyers, for its slip opinions, its judges are able vertical line-spacing or “leading” to now in its second edition, Butterick’s to make their own typography choices. improve readability. A little extra superb website, practicaltypography. The choices that Judge Bibas makes space between lines (Microsoft Word’s com, and the Seventh Circuit’s typog- point the way to opinions that are more line-spacing setting of 1.15 is a sound raphy guide at www.ca7.uscourts.gov/ professional-looking and readable. choice) is far more visually pleasing forms/type.pdf. Heading capitalization. In Judge than single spacing, though typog- Bibas’s opinions, the claim headings raphers generally agree that double MATTHEW STIEGLER is an appellate lawyer in use Title Caps, not ALL CAPS, both spacing is too much. When double Philadelphia. He blogs at ca3blog.com. in the opinion body and the table of spacing is required, however, we can .