When Numbers Get Serious: A Study of Plain English Usage in Briefs Filed before the New York Court of Appeals
![handle is hein.journals/sufflr46 and id is 479 raw text is: When Numbers Get Serious*: A Study of Plain English Usage
in Briefs Filed Before the New York Court of Appeals
Ian Gallacher**
At the time of writing, the academic discipline of legal writing has just
celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday in the United States.' This is a significant
milestone and the discipline enters its second quarter century in impressively
robust health: It has three professional organizations dedicated to it,2 three
* This title is taken from a Paul Simon song of the same name. PAUL SIMON, When Numbers Get Serious, on
HEARTS AND BONES (Warner Bros. 1983). For the lyrics of the song, see Paul Simon Lyrics: When Numbers
Get Serious, LYRICSTIME.COM, http://www.lyricstime.com/paul-simon-when-numbers-get-serious-lyrics.html
(last visited Dec. 23, 2012).
** Professor of Law and Director, Legal Communication and Research Program, Syracuse University College
of Law. Thanks to my indefatigable research assistants, Juliana Chan, Rachel Barranello, and Meredith Burke,
who did the hard work on this project. Thanks also to Dean Hannah Arterian for her support. As always, this
is for Julia McKinstry.
1. See generally Kristin B. Gerdy, Introduction to the Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years of
Teaching & Scholarship, 61 MERCER L. REV. 759 (2010). For a concise discussion of the history of legal
writing as a discipline, see generally Linda L. Berger et al., The Past, Presence, and Future ofLegal Writing
Scholarship: Rhetoric, Voice, and Community, 16 LEGAL WRITING: J. LEGAL WRITING INST. 521 (2010), and
Mary S. Lawrence, The Legal Writing Institute-The Beginning: Extraordinary Vision, Extraordinary
Accomplishment, II LEGAL WRITING: J. LEGAL WRITING INST. 213 (2005). It is difficult to date with precision
the origins of legal writing as a subject of study. Lawyers were giving each other advice on how to write in the
nineteenth century. See, e.g., Irwin Taylor, Preparation ofa Legal Brief 6 AM. LAW. 219 (1898), quoted in
Helen A. Anderson, Changing Fashions in Advocacy: 100 Years ofBrief-Writing Advice, 11 J. APP. PRAC. &
PROCESS 1, 9 n.23 (2010). The publication of David Mellnikoff's The Language of the Law, in 1963, and his
Legal Writing: Sense and Nonsense in 1982, helped to provide a contemporary basis for the study and teaching
of legal writing in the American legal academy. The MacCrate Report, more properly, A.B.A. SEC. LEGAL
EDUC. & ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR, LEGAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: AN EDUCATIONAL
CONTINUUM (Robert MacCrate ed., 1992) [hereinafter MACCRATE REPORT]-with its emphasis on writing as a
core lawyering skill-was instrumental in persuading almost all American law schools to provide legal-writing
education to all their students in the first year of law school. The Legal Writing Institute has been holding
biennial conferences since 1984 and has published a newsletter since 1985. See Carol McCrehan Parker, The
Signature Pedagogy ofLegal Writing, 16 LEGAL WRITING: J. LEGAL WRITING INST. 463, 464 (2010).
2. These are the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD), the Legal Writing Institute (LWI),
and Scribes: The American Society of Legal Writers. See generally ASS'N OF LEGAL WRITING DIRS.,
http://www.alwd.org (last visited Dec. 26, 2012); LEGAL WRITING INST., http://lwionline.org/index.html (last
visited Dec. 26, 2012); SCRIBES: THE AM. Soc'Y OF LEGAL WRITERS, http://www.scribes.org (last visited Dec.
26, 2012). Both the LWI and ALWD mount substantial biannual conferences. The legal writing section of The
Association of American Law Schools is also an active organizer of conference presentations about legal
writing, as are the numerous organizing committees of regional legal-writing conferences around the country.
In addition, there have been three biennial Applied Legal Storytelling conferences and a seventh Global Legal
Skills Conference was held in March 2012. See GLOBAL LEGAL SKILLS, http://globallegalskills.net/ (last
visited Dec. 26, 2012); Storytelling Conference, STURM COLL. OF LAW, http://www.law.du.edu/index.php/
storytelling-conference? (last visited Dec. 26, 2012).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/sufflr46&div=24&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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When Numbers Get Serious: A Study of Plain English Usage in Briefs Filed before the New York Court of Appeals
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