Dear Legal Writer, The No. 1 way to cut words without losing substance is to put your verbs into active voice, but most lawyers stop after doing only half the job:

▶️ They fix their main verbs but forget the verbs in their dependent clauses.  

Take this sentence, for example: 

“The motion was granted by the court because the evidence submitted by the plaintiff was inadmissible.” 

Most would spot the passive in “was granted by the court” and change it to “the court granted,” but what about “the evidence submitted by the plaintiff”?  

That’s passive, too!  

You should change it to “that the plaintiff submitted.” 

So the full, revised sentence would read:   

“The court granted the motion because the evidence [that] the plaintiff submitted was inadmissible.” 

(The “that” would be optional.) 

💌 Amanda

#DearLegalWriter

P.S. My challenge for you this week is to see how many pesky passives you can root out from your dependent clauses.

Think of me and switch them to active!