A good editor is like Pavlov’s dog. Here are five expressions that should make you salivate—for all the wrong reasons.
You know you’re talking to a lawyer when you hear things like “Do you have any thoughts regarding where we should go for dinner?” or “I have a serious issue concerning the way she wants to structure the spin-off.”
Few things scream “lawyer” louder than “To the extent that you have any questions, please feel free to call” or “To the extent the Court does find standing, the Court must still deny Count 3 on the merits.” Almost as loud: “in the event” and “in the event that.”
Another annoying lawyer-ism: “The prosecution cannot prove a key element of insider training, namely, the purchase or sale of a security.” Or “i.e., the purchase or sale of a security.”
A grammatical minefield, this phrase is better off put to rest. So don’t write “We were forced to file this motion due to your stubborn refusal to respond to our requests.” To make matters worse, this clumsy phrase is often paired with “the fact that,” as in “We were forced to file this motion due to the fact that you have stubbornly refused to respond to our requests.”
A bad-habit “sentence adverb” that you should almost always avoid. So don’t write “Seller’s conduct in these negotiations has been reprehensible. Specifically, Seller misrepresented . . . .”