No Slop

“He must have little genius who can’t spell a word in more than one way.”

— Attributed to Mark Twain since 1875. Located nowhere in his writings

“A trail court’s conclusions of law are subject to a de never review with no presumption of corrections.”

— A fictitious sentence from a brief I hope I never write, though I’ve seen many written like that.

I like playing no-slop pool. It minimizes the element of luck, connects intention to action, and, to me, makes winning more meaningful. Anybody can randomly sink a few shots without really trying. But when you call the shot and make it, you know you’ve got a quality game.

I have seen briefs that contain segments like the one above. One brief substituted the word “duplicitous” for “duplicative,” thereby accusing their own client of outright lying rather than mere redundancy.

Now, you and I know what they meant. We know the authors didn’t mean to label their client as dishonest. Their inverted letters and misplaced words were likely the product of time pressure that we all experience. These are minor errors easily overlooked.

But are they really minor?  If you were a salesman, you would not want to show up poorly dressed.  You should think of your brief as your sales pitch. If it has mistakes in it like “trail court” and the like, you have a poorly dressed brief.  A poorly dressed brief could affect the sale.

Back to the pool metaphor: You might make some shots playing slop, but it leaves the game to chance, not skill. A slop game isn’t a fully committed game.

We should apply the no-slop rule to our briefs. Write the meaning you intend. No reader, particularly no judge, wants to extract your actual point from the erroneous one you left in your brief. Yes, this is a plea for better editing and proofreading. Impeccable proofing is calling your shot in a brief. Don’t play slop. Write what you mean and leave nothing to chance.

In forty years of practice, I have certainly made my share of mistakes. (I’ll leave it to you to point them out to me.) I aim to make no more. I want my briefs to be exactly what I intend them to be. That’s the shot I want to take.

You might win with slop, but I hope that you aim for better. I want you, dear friends, to play the best game you can. I want you to call your shots.