Dear Legal Writer, Don’t write “the reason is because.” That’s redundant.

❌ The reason the court cancelled is because it rained.

✅ The reason the court cancelled is that it rained.

And yes, this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine.

Why?
—Because “reason” already signals causation.
—So adding “because” adds redundancy.
—And in legal writing, redundancy is rarely your friend.

In legal writing, we must use concise, precise, efficient wording.

Redundant phrasing slows readers down and blunts persuasiveness.

So instead of writing:

❌ The reason Newco fired him was because he was chronically late.

Write:

✅ The reason Newco fired him was that he was chronically late.

And when possible, shorten even further:

✅ Newco fired him because he was chronically late.
✅ Newco fired him for chronic lateness.

Tight, precise writing wins cases.

Redundancies do not.

💌 Amanda

#DearLegalWriter

P.S. Full disclosure:

I grew up with my dad drilling into me that “the reason is because” was wrong.

He would say, “The reason is NEVER because; the reason is ALWAYS that.”

And he would correct me any time I said it out loud.

So I grew up thinking “the reason is because” was categorically incorrect, and I was all set to write a post saying exactly that.

👉 But then this morning I got some pushback from Chat:

“Amanda, that is too strong.”

Fair enough.

And hence, my watered-down post above.

But maybe some of you grew up hearing the same rule I did?

Curious: Were you taught that “the reason is because” was wrong, or just bad style?