Dear Legal Writer, Be careful using “not” and “because” in the same sentence.

Dear Legal Writer, Be careful using “not” and “because” in the same sentence.

Here’s a classic example:

👿 “She was not promoted because she is female.”

Hmm. Was she promoted?
That’s not clear.

(Perhaps she was promoted, but the decision was not because she is female.)

Try these options instead:

 —Because she is female, she was not promoted.

 —She was promoted, but not because she is female.

Here’s another:

👿 “John did not go to court because of the litigation.”

Hmm, again.
Did John go to court? It’s not clear.

(Perhaps he did go to court, but he went for a reason other than the litigation.)

Try these options instead:

 —Because of the litigation, John did not go to court.

 —John went to court, but the litigation was not the reason.

Finally, here’s a more nuanced example:

👿 “The Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s claim that she was fired because of her race.”

Are you asking the court to dismiss the claim because of the plaintiff’s race?

Of course not, and your reader will likely know what you meant. But that doesn’t make the sentence clear.

As lawyers, we strive to promote precision and avoid ambiguity.

To avoid ambiguity, reword so that the alleged discriminatory reason is locked inside the noun phrase for the claim itself, rather than trailing at the end.

 — “The Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s race‑discrimination claim.”

 — “The Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s claim of race‑based termination.”

 — “The Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s claim alleging termination on the basis of race.”

These make it syntactically impossible to read “because of her race” (or equivalent) as modifying “should dismiss,” because the discriminatory basis is now part of the label for the claim, rather than a separate clause.

In the very least, by revising the sentence, you’ll avoid your reader doing a double take and be stalled in reading (and that is always good.)

📬 Do you think I’m being too nitpicky with this last example?

Let me know in a comment!

💌 Amanda

#DearLegalWriter

P.S. Some say that in addition to restructuring negative-because sentences as shown above, you can also remove ambiguity by adding a comma before the “because.”

“She was not promoted, because she is female.”
“John did not go to court, because of the litigation.”

I disagree.

To be sure, it’s fine grammatically to add a comma. But the comma looks awkward to me.

 👉 That alone could give your Reader pause and make them question your sentence’s meaning.

So I’d stick with rearranging over comma’ing.

And you?