Dear 1L, Lawyers have some wacky ways of writing things.

Dear 1L, Lawyers have some wacky ways of writing things.

Learn them early so you don’t lose points when it counts.

1. In the legal world, we spell the word “judgment” without an “e.”

—> Change your Word settings so they autocorrect “judgement” to “judgment” when you type.

Although both spellings work in the non-legal context, now that you’re joining the legal world, you should probably just start using the “judgment” spelling in everything you write.

2. When typing a court name, we do NOT use superscript.

—> Change your settings so the system doesn’t superscript the “st,” “nd,” “rd,” or “th” in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.

3. The word “at” in legal citations is never capitalized.

—> Change your settings to stop auto-capitalizing the first letter after you type a period + space.

4. The adjective form of “tort” is “tortious,” not “tortuous.”

—> Change your settings to accept the “tortious” spelling.

There are other words, symbols, and terms that the default Word settings get wrong for legal-writing purposes, but the four above are the ones that come up the most.

💌 Amanda

P.S. If you found this post valuable, you will enjoy the new “Special Dear 1L” letters that I share only with email subscribers. Sign up is here: writinglawtutors.com/dear-1l-letters/

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📬 What other wacky things should we be warning new 1Ls about?

#Dear1L